


A Song of Salt and Iron

by cllory



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blacktyde, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Fanfiction, Friends to Lovers, Game of Thrones References, Game of Thrones-esque, Harlaw, I have shit grammar don't bully me, Inspired by Game of Thrones, Intrigue, Lady Pirates, Medieval Vibes, Ocean, Original Character(s), Pirates, Pyke, Pyke castle, Queens and Kings, Romance, Sea, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Spies, Westeros, backstabbing, hurt comfort, iron islands, island vibes, lesbians at sea!!, no beta im very sorry for typos LMAO, priate lesbians kinda, traitors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24152506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cllory/pseuds/cllory
Summary: In the cold clutch of Ironman’s Bay, the unforgiving rock of Pyke stands poised for a great fall. With Balon Greyjoy slowly descending into madness, Winter approaching, and the heir to the Salt Throne in the hands of torturers, the future of the Iron Islands looks bleak. In the midst of impending chaos, a young Islander has her world turned on its head when she assumes a job at Pyke castle to serve its liege Lady, the stoic and powerful Yara Greyjoy. The girl is thrust into the world of Lords and Kings, the complexities of Westeros, and impending war with Winter and the mysterious Dragon Queen—all while battling her growing feelings for Yara, and hiding the traitorous family she hails from.
Relationships: Yara Greyjoy/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. House of Traitors

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! this is my first ever published fic, and I'm drawing from the TV show and some book stuff. I do not own anything besides my OC in this fic!!!! I also am not a superfan so I might get timelines or characters mixed up, sorry!! a lot of it is my own imagination.  
> Also this timeline sort of begins pre-season 6 for some context.  
> Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you like it :)

The sound of the sea crashing against craggy rocks pulls her from a light sleep, the dim, gray light spilling in her window and whisking the scent of salt from the sea into her lungs. Mellara Hoare breathes deeply, imagining that the mist dancing in the air sweeping through her mouth, sparkling as it spread through her blood.  


She did not open her eyes just yet. There is peace hanging around her; gentle, simple peace that she often did not experience. It is like a warm blanket, swaddling her from chin to toes. When she did rise, which she would have to, that peace would shatter.  
But for now, in the early moments of her day, the sea sighs and gurgles to her, and the light grows stronger, burning away the mists that wreathed her little island home. Today will be a warm day, warm as it ever got here. The end of Summer was near, and the weather made up for it by gifting temperate days before the sea froze over and snow buried the few, stringy crops in the sandy ground.  


A crash resounds through her head, lurching her from the little bubble of serenity. Her eyes flash open, her arms pulling her up from her thin straw bed and on to her feet.  


“Drowned God damn it!” The voice is muffled through the wall, the floor below her. Another crash echoes throughout, and her father bellows once more, “Girl! Get down here—you worthless piece of—”  


Mellara lets her eyes close briefly. The sea sighs again.  


She doesn’t linger too long. She pulls on her dirty dress, one of two that she owned, tying the battered, rust-colored apron tight around her waist. Her leather shoes are white and brittle with salt, but well-molded to her feet. Her hair is long and thick, and often swung into her eyes, so she secures it with a strip of cloth, pulling her fingers once through.  


Then she pulls open the trapdoor that leads to a ladder, climbing swiftly to the second floor of their small city home, the floor that houses barrels of ale and bushels of wheat, lumps of wax and soap, things that no one bothers with but her.  


She hurries down the wider stone steps that brought her to the main floor, where the sound came from. Here it was larger, rough-hewn stone and limestone walls, a dirty, muddy floor. The main room, leading to the door, was lit by a smoky fire in their hearth, the door surrounded with tridents and spears, swords, axes, whatever weapons the men brought in. To the left of the fireplace is the dark hallway where her father’s room is, and the tiny privy, and an even smaller room for her brothers. Her half-brothers.  


Her father is in his chair, red-faced, his stringy black hair brushed over his pock-marked scalp. He scowls at her, a wooden bowl at his feet, the meal mush she had beat into an edible paste splattered in the mud.  


“Father,” she says, her voice still gravelly from sleep. “What’s wrong?”  


His scowl deepens, the lines in his face darkening. “What are you trying to feed me, girl? What am I to you, a horse? A sheep? Get me something other than this mush.”  


Mellara bites the inside of her cheek. “Of course, father.”  


His hands are tight around the arms of his wheeled chair, his broad knuckles white. Often times they would split and bleed, such was the force of his grip. Her eyes skipped from them to the wooden table in the center of the room, empty. No one was here just yet, so she would only get her father food. Too many times she had made the mistake of getting too much, or too little, and either was an offense, which lead to some part of her body with a bruise.  


Her father grumbles, moving his hands to the big wooden wheels on his chair, heaving his body forward, grinding the mush deeper into the mud. His back is to her, and she takes it as her opportunity to leave, nearly running through their front door.  


She bursts into the rough-stoned street, turning north to the closest tavern. Very few people are out at the moment, still enjoying their sleep in the gray light of dawn. A trickle of sunlight finds the back of her neck as it rises, lighting the road before her.  


Her steps are quick, patting quietly on the uneven stone. Early mornings were familiar to Mellara, and dear. Empty streets, no leering eyes or shouts from about, no work to be done just yet. But it never lasted, everything on this side of town was close together, packed. The tavern that provides most of their food, and where she works for the majority of her day, was less than a quarter mile from her home, and the driftwood sign reaching her eyes quicker than she wishes it would.  


The tavern is empty save her fellow barmaid and few cooks, starting to beat dough into bread. Smoke and the gentle push of dough on stone were the only sounds.  


The barmaid, Saed, an older woman with wiry gray hair and a thousand tiny wrinkles on her face, turns at Mellara’s entrance, straightening up from the table she was cleaning.  


“Mellara,” she says. “We don’t need you yet. Come later.”  


Mellara bites her cheek again. She’d hoped it was early enough for the tavern to be empty, and she could slip behind the counter and steal the cold remains of last nights food.  


“My father needs breakfast. Do you have any meat pies from last night? Or bread?”  


The woman grunts, shaking her head, but goes behind the bar and into the kitchen. It was surprising, and Mellara is grateful. Saed had a temper quite like the sea itself, clear and calm one moment, but likely to turn stormy in the next, which was typical of the Islanders. If she happened to be foul today, her father would likely not get food.  


Saed shoves a loaf of dark Island bread in her hands and a cold meat pie. It was more than Mellara could hope for. The bread was not hard to come by, what with the wild grain that grew so rapidly along the sea shore, easily ground into a grayish flour and baked in the stoves, but Mellara couldn’t find herself able to make it in their little fire at home, the bread never puffed up the way it should, and she had been punished enough for it.  


The meat pie is quite a stroke of luck. There wasn’t a lot of livestock to be found nearby, and even the tiniest morsel of meat that wasn’t fish was very good. Her father would be in a good mood today.  


“Thank you, Saed.”  
Saed grimaces, the closest she’d ever get to a smile. “Come back later, noon. You’ll work later, for that,” she looks at the food in Mellara’s arms. “And tomorrow.”  


Mellara nods her head, lifting her elbow as greeting to the cooks, who did not acknowledge her. She leaves the way she came, hurrying back to where she knew her father was waiting.  


It was an arrangement her father had made many years ago, that Mellara should work, day or night, with no pay, in exchange for food. It was smart, most of the things he did were smart, so her family would have a steady stream of bread and meat and ale where many others did not.  


But she pushed her luck too many times. Winter was coming, food was scarce, and places like the tavern didn’t have need for a barmaid who worked for free and took their food. It was becoming more viable to pay in silver than meat.  


On her way back, the people in her neighborhood began to stir. First it was the vagrants, who had cuddled themselves onto doorsteps or among pigpens, for those lucky few who had a pig. They drew themselves up in their rags and stumbled down the street to find a new place to haunt, before the house owners woke and beat the vagrants away.  


Mellara kept her eyes averted, as she learned. Making eye contact with a vagrant meant your goods might as well be gone. They were not above stealing, not above hurting someone to steal. They had nothing to lose.  


She felt a deep spear pity for them in her chest. Come Winter, most of these vagrants would not survive. She suspected that besides the general laziness of the so-called ‘city guard’, it was a reason the homeless people were left to wander, the guards understanding that soon, nature would do their dirty work for them.  


Carefully, Mellara unlatched the door and pushed in with her shoulder, makings sure not to jostle the precious food. The room was still dark and smoky—the fire would need tending.  


Her father is not waiting for her, not as she expected, so she placed the food on their wooden table, clearing the spot with her apron. The bowl he had thrown earlier still lay in the mud, the mush seeped deep into the moist ground. She bends to pick it up.  


“What’d you bring us, Mellie?”  


A shudder trails down her spine as she straightens and she scowls at the voice’s owner, ready to protect the food like a dog and her pups.  


“It’s for father.”  


There’s a sound from the dark hallway, footsteps. Beneath her brows, she sees the figure of her half-brother, hulking, huge, lumber over to the table, sniffing exaggeratedly over the food. “For daddy,” he mocks, reaching to take a chunk of the bread.  
She bites the inside of her cheek. Fine. He could have the bread. It was better to stave off conflict until it was needed. If he touched the meat pie, she’d raise her voice, but for now she would just have to watch.  


“Wolfgur!” The rumble came from within the dark hallway. Her father’s voice. “You touch my breakfast, you lose that hand.”  


A girlish laugh follows, and her half-brother leers at Mellara, watching as she grimaces at the sound. Not an hour Mellara had been gone, and he returned to the women in his bed.  


“Father’s found a new salt wife,” Wolfgur tells her, speaking around the mouthful of bread. “Aren’t you happy for him little Mellie? We might have a new little brother soon.”  


She ignores him, stalking over to the fire. The seagrass basket that held extra wood walk half-full. She would have to get more.  


Mellara contemplates leaving right then, running from the room as badly as her feet itched to do, but thinking about the anger of her father if his food was truly gone kept her in place. Wolfgur could eat everything at the table and more, but it would be Mellara’s fault that the food was gone.  


Wolfgur sits heavily at the table, jerking his head at her. “Ale.”  


“Get it yourself,” she snaps back.  


He scowls at her, crinkling the skin of his chin. He was struggling to grow a beard there, the thick strap of hair that the men of the Islands had, but he hadn’t been able to. He was only eighteen or so, but as big and mean as a full-grown island coyote, and yet his face was hairless like a baby. It gave her great pleasure to see him struggle with the beard.  


She was Wolfgur’s senior by a year and a quarter, her father’s eldest daughter, and not born of a salt wife. Wolfgur, and his younger twin brothers Halleck and Hagon, and the scattering of even younger ones after them, were all her juniors. But Mellara had been the product of her father’s only stone wife.  


She and Wolfgur remained in tense silence for long minutes, until the sound of her father grunting and breathing heavily made its way to them, his thick arms pushing his wheeled chair through the mud of their home.  


“Girl,” he growls. “Ale.”  


Mellara bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. She ignores Wolfgur’s smug look as she bounds up the stairs. She lugs a barrel across the floor, her arms trembling as she manages to lift the thing on her shoulders, stepping carefully to the ground floor.  


The barrel goes on the table next to the meat pie. She opens the valve carefully, capturing a stream of deep red wine as it pours from the opening. Her mind stutters, because the ale was not to be red, the deep red of blood, and not to smell sweet.  


Her father notices a moment after, reaching forward with a swift hand and grabbing her writs, crushing it in his fist.  


“Foolish girl,” he snarls. “Not that one! Cork it—you—put that thing back upstairs—Drowned God damn you—”  
Her arm spasms from the pain and she gasps, fumbling with the cork, pushing it back into the stream, spilling the rich liquid down her frozen arm. He hisses at the feel, pulling away from her, leaving her wrist throbbing. She managed to stem the flow and lifts the barrel back up, her knees quivering.  


Her father curses. “Leave it! Damn it, leave it. You’ve ruined all right, might as well drink it now. I was saving that,” he scowls at her again. “For the men.”  


They lock eyes. His were dark and hard, the color of the deepest depths of the sea, with the pupils barely visible. Their blackness swallowed her whole, and her belly went to water. He had been a fine-looking man once, in her memories. His face was strong and weathered by his years on the sea, his black hair thick like hers, stubbled on his cheeks and chin. He had a steep brow and thick lips, and his cheekbones jutted out, giving him a hungry, fearsome look. In the years his skin had crinkled and grew lines, and his black hair was shot through with silver, but his eyes had remained clear, burning with a cold fire.  


She looks away, keeping her breath even. “I am sorry, father.”  
He stares at her, his frown deepening. She waits for the blow, for his shout, but he seems to give up on it, lifting his hand and pointing at the door. “Get out. Go, do something useful with yourself. I don’t want to see your face until tonight. The men are coming and you’re to serve them. But don’t step foot in here until the sun’s set.”  


She opens her mouth to tell him that she would be working at the tavern tonight, but her interrupts, his eyes growing stormy. 

“Go!”  


Mellara whirls towards the door, pulling it open and fleeing into the open air.  
It didn’t matter. His angers came and went like squalls on the open sea, and surely the men could not be meeting in her little home. Her father only allowed his closest confidants, his family, to see the squalor that he lived in. The tavern it would be, and she was lucky for it.  


Around her as she walks down the main road for the second time, the town is waking. Men and women emerge from their homes, the women sweeping shit and dew from their front steps, the men stomping down the street, mostly in the direction of Pyke castle, their scowls as gray as the morning light. Mellara keeps her eyes down, her hair covering her face, as she walks swiftly to the west, towards the sea that calls her. Her heart calms itself slowly, and the further she travels from her house, the more her chest eases, and her head lifts.  


She’s nearly in the outskirts of town, now. She must have been walking for quite some time, the only sound is the sea. The road runs out, the limestone crumbling into rocky sand. There were no farms on the island, not Pyke, at least, they had been banned many years ago. The Smallfolk stayed in their tiny cities and towns, so Mellara was quite alone.  


In front of her, about a mile down, the sea leapt and sparkled, the waves rising to greet her. Great gray rocks thrust up in the shallows, creating a wall among the shore, pockmarked by years of erosion. The sandy strip she stumbled down was thin and hardly visible to the eye, but she had walked its path many times. Her feet knew where to go, even if her eyes looked away.  


The sound of the water is soothing, and she breathes deeply. Salt fills her lungs, and the barest of smiles spreads across her face.  
She eases between two large rocks, reaching a tiny lagoon filled with little pebbles and sand. It was a secret place, one she had frequented for years, a haven. Mellara scoots to the ground, pulling off her leather boots and sitting in the warming sand, wrapping her arms around her knees.  


She closes her eyes, letting the sun warm her face. Solitude. A balm to the sore heart she kept encased in stone.  


She allows herself to sit for a long moment, enjoying the way the wind played through her hair, the way the pebbles felt beneath her bare feet. But soon she opens her eyes and stands, her stomach demanding food. She hadn’t gotten a chance to eat the meal mush she had made for breakfast, and she was paying for it.  


Mellara approaches the sea, wandering in, letting the hem of her dress get wet. The lagoon had calmer waves than the open sea, and she was able to walk through the water up to her knees with no resistance. The water is clear and cold, and she saw right to the bottom, the colorful pebbles and pieces of shells, and the fat black dots of sea snails.  


Her hand reaches in, and she shivers from the cold, her fist clenching around the snails. She smiles down at them. Breakfast.  


The meat is chewy and salty, but it was better than starving until she made her way back home for whatever was left for her. She smashes them open on a flat stone and washes them in the crisp water, pulling faces as her teeth grounds them into something edible. If she knew how to make a fire, she could boil or fry them, which would be a delicacy.  


But the only wood available was hidden away, sheltered in a little sea cave in the shape of a tiny boat. She crawls her way to it after her meager snack of the snails, checking on it, although it had been sitting there untouched for nearly five years. Nonetheless she worried over it, patting her hand underneath the broad seats for the canvas bag she had stashed there.  


It held the precious things she had smuggled to this spot over the years. A stub of a candle. Strips of dried meat. A skein of fresh water. A woolen blanket. Rough-woven socks. Three silver coins, and the most important, a wickedly sharp knife, stolen from her father’s own supply of weapons. There wasn’t enough there for a day, much less a journey across the sea. But it was a start.  


It is Mellara’s greatest secret, and her most precious hope. It is escape.  


~

The tavern is raucous in the evening, and Mellara’s feet are aching only a few hours in. She had pleaded her way to a decent lunch of bread and stew before piling her arms with plates and tankards of ale, running back and forth to the kitchens.  
The sun lowers itself in the sky, becoming a bright orange, staining the clouds pink. Mellara works still, cleaning stone plates, rushing meat pies back and forth, cutting bread and cheese, filling tankards again and again, dodging the hands of men and avoiding their eyes, her ears battered with coarse talk and laughter.  


But she didn’t mind the work. She prefers the tavern to her cramped home, she likes the loudness of unnamed men to the sound of her father and brothers, the sounds of whatever women shared her father’s bed. The men in the tavern were predictable and vapid, and only wanted two things from her: food, and sex. She could provide one, and knew how to avoid the second.  


There was an ease in the pattern of serving and slipping past hands, and she was well-versed in it. But of course, the constancy was always interrupted.  


Saed is pushing two tankards of ale towards her when the door slams open. Mellara knew immediately who it was by the way the tavern’s noise fell flat, and then started up again. She knew the way the men made an effort to look right into their cups, to avoid staring.  


Her hands grip the handles of the tankards hard.  


“Barmaid!” Her father’s voice booms across the room. “Ale. And bread.”  


She straightens, setting the tankards down in front of two men with sea-caps on. One of them looked at her, didn’t smile, didn’t say a thing, just stared as she clenched her teeth and turned.  


“Of course,” she bobs her head at her father. Her eyes skate over the others, the ones he had brought. Wolfgur, Halleck and Hagon, Lord Maron Volmark of Old Wyk, Lord Dunstan of House Dumm, Harren Half-Hoare, and other men, men she didn’t recognize, for they were forever coming and going.  


She didn’t look at them too long. Better to act like the scared barmaid she’s meant to be. Which isn’t too hard to do.  


Saed is waiting for her behind the bar, a hand on the barrel of ale. “He needs to pay,”  


Mellara elbows her way past Saed, pulling the iron tankards from the shelf. “He is paying.”  


Saed licks her teeth. “We can’t keep you on, even if you work for free. Even if you work all day, every day, which you don’t. We lose money. Every night.”  


Mellara shoves the cup underneath the foamy stream of drink and curses Saed to the bottom of the sea. No job? No way into the tavern for her father to meet with his men, no way for her to stay out of the house, to give her family food, no buffer between herself and his fists?  


“He needs to pay, the food the drink,” Saed glances at where he sits in his great wheeled chair, the fire roaring behind him. “Tell ‘im.”  


Mellara can’t help it, she laughs. Now, Saed is telling her? With him right there, and all his armored friends?  


“Even if he could, he won’t,” she says, gathering the tankards in her hands. It was true. If her father had all the riches on the islands, even if his pockets were bursting with coin, he wouldn’t lay a single one down. He expected things from people, expected them when he told them his name, when he saw in their eyes what they knew of him.  


Saed stops her with a hand on her arm, digging her nails in. “He pays. By the end of Summer.”  


From the corner of her eye, Mellara sees a cook straighten up, staring at the exchange. He’s big, bulky. His brother is too, the one beside him. She understands.  


“I’ll work,” she says quietly, to Saed. “I’ll work from dawn to dusk. Every day.”  


Saed clucks her tongue. “You could work like that until you’re old as me, girlie, and still have the debt.”  


Her stomach twists painfully. The image of the little boat flashes through her mind. “How much does he owe?”  


“More’n you have.”  


“Girl!” The voice was like a whip, even from across the room. Mellara’s hands begin to shake, the ale slopping over the sides.  


“I’ll pay,” she says to Saed, without thinking. What else was she to say? “But I need time.”  


She doesn’t wait for a response. Whatever Saed and the cooks had planned for her wasn’t worse than whatever her father and brothers would have to say if she hesitated any longer.  


The table is crowded with the hard-faced men her father gathered. Harren Half-Hoare gives her a stupid, leering grin as she placed the tankard in front of him, his hand quicker than most, smacking her rump.  


Her teeth dig into her lip, preventing a squeak from escaping. His black eyes shine with lust.  


Quickly, she puts down the drinks, not a single other man acknowledging her, simply taking the drink as soon as it appears in front of them and guzzling it down. The table is littered with papers and maps, bright green splotches representing the Islands surrounded by markings of the sea. She swings her hair in front of her eyes, glancing as quickly as she could at the largest of maps, her eyes going immediately to the largest portion of green at the edge of the map. _Westeros_ , she reads.  


She dashes away to get bread. The pair of men at the bar, the ones with the sea-caps, are now one, the remaining man still staring at her. She avoids his eyes as she piles dark loaves onto plates, slamming down a dull knife, pretending she doesn’t see how Saed is whispering to the cook with a hand over her mouth.  


The bread slides onto the table same as the ale. The men keep their eyes down, as if it were just the wind, not a person, serving them. She scans the map quickly, noting the words, the jutting lands. _Riverlands_ , she sees written. _The Twins, Westerlands, the Crag_ —  


“…soon,” Half-Hoare was saying to Wolfgur. “Before the end of Summer, I would think. We still hold Moat Calin, and the rest of the Ironborn…”  


“—coward I say. Haven’t heard a report in nearly a month. Probably in the dungeons of the Red Keep, begging for his life, begging for the Wall,” another man is saying, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.  


“They say he’s being held in the Dreadfort, all tied up like a roast pig, that bastard Snow cutting pieces off him every day, just to hear his screams—”  


“—can’t say I wouldn’t like to do the same, cursed Greyjoys—“  


“—lost his cock, even. I don’t care what any man says, I’d wish for death after that—”  


Her father and Lord Maron speak the quietest, only between the two of them. Mellara puts a plate of bread between them, ears pricking.  


“You’re sure of it? You know this information is true?” Lord Maron is saying.  


“I’d trust the man with my life,” her father answers. “He’s not given us a lie yet. Think of the opportunities, Maron. Out there, biding his time on Blacktyde. Says he’s been ‘ere for nearly a month now, gathering his men, gathering the ships…”  


She moves away. Best not to be noticed.  


Saed is gone from the bar, and Mellara slips behind it and put her face in her hands.  


There was silver in the boat she hid. Not enough, she knew, but it might keep Saed from doing something rash, from banning Mellara and her family from the tavern. Years before, in a different city, somewhere on Old Wyk or other, a tavern had done a similar thing. Mellara didn’t know exactly what happened, but she knew that only a day after they had been banned, her brother had her cleaning off his blood-crusted weapons and they boarded a ship to Pyke, not saying why they had to move so quickly.  


Again, the little boat appears up in her mind. It isn’t ready, not yet. If they had to leave again so suddenly, all of her work would be for nothing.  


“On your feet girl, there’s work.” Saed’s voice snaps from above her.  


Mellara takes her hands from her face, looking at Saed’s flat eyes. There’s no kindness there. The Islands tended to do that to people, to beat out whatever compassion had existed there. If there had been any in the first place.  


“How much?” Mellara asks, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. Saed’s eyes only harden.  


When she tells Mellara the amount, it’s all she can do to keep herself from bursting into tears. Too much. It was too, too much.  
But she grits her teeth and forces herself to nod at Saed. “You’ll get your money,” she says. “I’ll work when you need me. I needn’t food for myself, just for my father and his men.”  


Saed regards her, face unreadable. Behind her, the cooks pound shape into bread dough, their meaty fists slamming into the stone.  


“Fine,” Saed’s jaw works. “Fine. But if you don’t have the money by the end of Summer, girlie.” She points a wrinkled finger at Mellara, the threat unfinished.  


Mellara bites back a sigh of relief. Time. She just needed time. She didn’t know where they money would come from, or how she would get it, but she would. Somehow.  


There’s a sharp tap on the bar behind them, and Mellara turned, her hands shaking. The man with the sea-cap held out his empty cup.  


“Ale, please.”  


She listens to Saed’s quick steps as she walks away so Mellara took it, filling it to the brim with the pale, foamy ale. She slides it to him, and he reached a hand forward, leaving a bright silver coin in front of her. She stares at it, then at him.  


He smiles. “For you.”  


Her brow crumples. “I’m not a whore. That’s down the street, with the red lantern out front.” She doesn’t touch the coin.  
The man’s smile grows. “I know where the whore house is. That’s payment for the drink.”  


Mellara’s teeth dig into her cheek. She feels as though she was missing a joke as he smiles at her. “Too much, sir. Ale’s only two copper pennies.”  


He must have been a raider of some sort. She looks closer at his face, the clear blue eyes, sun-browned skin, the yellow hair underneath his cap. Islanders had yellow hair about as often as they said tender words. And no common man, especially not in this part of town, had a whole silver coin to spare at a tavern.  


“Take it,” he insists as she stares at him. “For the drink, and a tip.”  


The conversation with Saed echoes in her ears. Her hand reaches out and took the coin, slipping it into her pocket, her eyes never leaving the man. He must have been from the mainland, Westeros, and joined an Islander ship that plundered the shores in search of treasure. Why else would he look like that, and have this kind of money?  


“Why?” She asks, her face still frowning.  


He shrugs, looking unbothered. He was young, for a raider. A few years older than herself, perhaps. “I know what it’s like to be in debt. And I have money. And,” his eyes flick down her. “You’re pretty.”  


She stiffens, her face going red for a thousand different reasons. “You heard?”  


He laughs. “I did, lady. Apologies for the intrusion.”  


“I’m not a lady,” her face burns under his gaze. “Can I get you anything else?” Anything to get out from under his eyes, anything to get away from this man.  


His smile is too knowing for her liking. “Nothing for me.” She begins to move away, to gather the empty plates that she’s spotted, her feet itching to move, but his hand shoots out, grabbing her wrist. Anger flares in her chest. “But I have something for you.”  


“I am not a whore,” she repeats, making each word achingly clear.  


His fingers loosen around her wrist. Was this a proposal? She wonders for a moment. It wouldn’t be the first man at the bar with a drink to ask for her hand. For a thousand reasons, besides the fact that she really wasn’t free enough to give herself away, it was a repulsive idea.  


But she waits, for after he asked, she would say no, and she could leave without him making a scene. She shuddered to think of a drunken man begging for her hand loudly in front of her father.  


“I know you are not a whore,” he says finally. “I have work for you. Work that pays.”  


She unlatches his hand from her wrist and stepped away, but not too far. “What is it?”  


“A job,” he says, drawing out the suspense. He sips his ale. “Up at Pyke castle.”  


Without meaning, her eyes flash to her father. Thoughts erupt in her head. “Doing what?”  


He shrugs again. “Whatever it is they need women there to do.” Her fists clench, but he doesn’t see, continuing. “The linens and cleaning, I suppose. But it pays ten coppers a day.”  


Ten coppers? She looks again at her father, the ideas slowly coming together. A job at the castle, that her father didn’t know about. A job that would pay her real money. He didn’t care for her at the house, besides the morning for his breakfast, and he only needed her at the tavern in the evenings for serving. And then in the in-between hours when she wasn’t to be visible, to darn his clothing and wash it, to sweep and pack the floor with dry sand, and whatever else it was that women did.  


“Yes,” her mouth says. Her mind whirls. Yes? Yes?! What are you thinking?  


But she isn’t, not really. The ideas were still coming together, but her traitorous mouth says again, “Yes. I’ll do it.”  


The man smiles, much broader now. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He pushes the empty tankard forward, getting to his feet. He is taller than she expected, shoulders and head above her. “Come tomorrow at dawn. Ask for the chamberlain. Tell him that Rickon sent you.”  


He turns to leave, and she steps forward. “Wait!” He stops, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Rickon—Rickon who?”  


But he doesn’t answer, giving her one last grin before pushing his way out the door.  


Mellara feels like her feet were nailed to the ground. What had she just agreed to? What in all the Drowned hells was she doing?  
Her eyes pull her face to where her father and his men sit, still discussing in the low-lit tavern as they always did. If he found out what she had done, she was as good as dead.  


But if he didn’t—if she was careful enough, she would have money to pay off their debts to keep Saed contented enough not to take on her father, meaning they could stay in Pyke. Meaning, of course, that she could escape.


	2. Iron Heir

Yara Greyjoy pushes open the doors to the great hall of the Pyke castle, still smelling of the sea. The Hall is dark, the only light was the fire roaring in the fireplace a the far end, surrounded by the stone tentacles of the kraken carved into the walls of the castle.

Her boots echo through the empty walls, announcing her entrance where the steward did not. The steward who now scrambled in her wake, woken from his deep slumber at his post right outside the doors.

She didn’t have time for the man, and didn’t care for any type of ceremony. This was her castle as much as it was her father’s. She needn’t be announced.

“My lady!” The steward calls, but she ignores him, continuing on her path to the leather-backed chair facing the fire.

“Father,” she says, still a ways away. “Are you aware of the Dornish ships anchored just beyond the shore?”

There’s no answer, not that she expected one. It irritates her, nonetheless, and the ridiculous steward was still calling after her.

“My lady,” he huffs, a few feet behind her. “I must announce—your lord father has the right to know who enters—”

“Shut up,” she says, her eyes trained on the back of the damned chair. “And I’m not a lady.”

Her hand reaches the back of the chair and grips it, swinging herself around so she’s square in front of her father.

“Father,” she repeats, scowling. “Did you hear me?”

His stringy gray hair falls around his shoulders, lank in the leaping light from the fire. He frowns at her. “You think anything happens on Pyke without my knowledge of it?”

She chuckles in disbelief, cocking her head. “Then what in all the Drowned hells are they doing here? Did one of your men take the ships?”

Balon grunts, lifting his heavy body from the chair, shaking his head at her. “No, no. Not my men. Fools, they are, approaching our shores so blatantly. Nearly shot them to splinters before they send a sortie to the castle. Wanted a trade of some sort. Useless effort.”

Yara makes a face. Trade? With the Dornish? The Iron Islands hadn’t a trade connection in its entire history, to her knowledge. Maybe years and years back with the Lannisters or some sort, but not for at least a hundred years. Not since the Greyjoys ruled, certainly.

The steward is puffing breaths behind them, leaning on his knee, his large belly heaving with the effort of his breath. “My lord—your—your lady daughter,” with a fat finger he points at Yara, who rolls her eyes.

“Ah, yes my lady daughter,” Balon growls. “I had no idea. You’re dismissed, whomever you are. Get out of here.”

“My lord?”

Balon waves a hand. “Out. Don’t come back.”

The steward splutters, his face frozen in shock. Yara shakes her head. This would mean a new household turnover. Her father, despite calling himself king, didn’t care much about the upkeep of their household or their castle. Stewards came and went. So did the servants. As long as no one ever expected _her_ to pick the new staff, she didn’t mind much.

She watches as the steward finally realizes that Balon, who’s stalked his way over to the finely carved table some ways away, was serious. He scowls at Yara and turns on his heel, marching his way back out the hall, pushing open the doors and disappearing down the hall.

Yara turns back to her father. “The fleet?”

Yara had sailed pass the ship’s bay and only looked briefly, but what she had seen hadn’t made her confident in her father’s plans.

“Quite well,” her father says, his voice a constant growl. “We’ve built near ten frigates in your absence,” he eyes her. “Well? What did you bring?”

Yara resists the urge to put her face in her hands. She had been gone many weeks. Months, she thinks, but time hadn’t been quite an issue on the sea. It was not she and her father’s way to hug and kiss on her return from sea, but she’d been gone for quite a time, and her father did not seem to care the slightest.

On her return from the long pillage, she and her men sailed towards the gray rock of Pyke, her heart thumping at the sight of the towers of the Pyke castle, reaching through the misty sky. Then she’d been alerted to the colorful sails of the Dornish longships, anchored some ways from the little town at the base of the island.

She’d leapt from her ship and onto skiff, her men using the oars as fast as they could so she could march her way to the castle and demand what the hell the foreigners were doing near her home.

Secretly, though she’d never admit it, she hoped that they carried a certain person, although it wouldn’t make sense. He was in the Dreadfort last the knew.

The memories rush back, and she takes a breath to steady herself, pushing the images to the back of her mind.

“We’d had many a raid,” Yara says. She watches her father’s face, her brow knitted. She wasn’t being entire truthful, and over her long voyage, the raids had become less and less important to her as she saw the country to the West for what it had become after the War of the Five Kings. She hadn’t liked what she’s seen. “The smallfolk in the West fear Winter,” she starts.

“Cowards,” her father grumbles.

 _Cowards fear death,_ she thinks. _Only fools do not fear Winter._

“Not much to be found,” she continues. “The people are ravaged from the war still. We have a decent supply of grain and maize, potatoes,” she lists off the goods she and her men had lugged aboard. “Ale, wine. Cloth and some silver.”

Balon rests his knuckles on the wooden table, staring down at the map in front of him. Westeros was splashed across it, stretching like a lazy cat in a patch of sun. Yara hated the maps like this, with her little collection of Islands crowded to the east. They look so small.

“We used to have land, you know,” he begins. She fights the urge to roll her eyes. One of her father’s rants, of the great power of the Kings of the Iron Islands, how the westerners trembled beneath the might of their navy, how the greatest castle ever built was made, ruled by an Islander—

“We used to hold castles and lands, rule the Riverlands even!” His scowl deepens. “You see how these people spit on us. How they see us as nothing but scavengers, nothing but scum, raiding their shores—”

Yara tunes him out, her eyes drifting to the window. They _did_ raid the shores of Westeros. It wasn’t anything but a fact.

She hopes her men were delivering their goods directly to the castle. The little town, a city, almost, at the base of the castle, was known for causing disruption to delivery of goods. And what with Winter coming, the people must be nervous. And desperate.

She should have alerted the guards to her arrival. She curses her rash action. She’d seen the Dornish sails and lost her head. It wasn’t something she did often, and she clenches her fists, feeling foolish that she’d come running to her father without seeing to her men and their goods like she should have.

But Westeros had shaken her. The past few _months_ had shaken her. Yara didn’t feel quite herself, not like she had before…before….

“…Kings! What do I have to show for it…” her father trails off, shoving the map from the table. “No sons, no lands…”

Yara crosses her arms and glares at him. She had made up for the loss of his sons tenfold, and he knew it.

He doesn’t look at her, turning to the fire instead. She knew what he was thinking about, _who_ he was thinking about. She thought about it too. Too much.

After her failure at the Dreadfort, those months ago, she’d barely been able to stay a night at the castle without bolting up from sleep, filled with an urgency she couldn’t place. Something was going to happen, something soon. But what was it?

The restlessness had nearly driven her insane. She couldn’t stay in the castle, where her father’s once passionate claims to his throne turned desperate, edging on mad. She couldn’t sit in the hall with his advisors and captains without seeing what was in that box.

So when her father began the construction of a fleet, in the face of Winter, she’d nearly ripped out her hair. Instead she took the best thirty men she knew and sailed west, plundering and reaving until her panic had eased and the barren land had nothing left to give, and she turned back to the Islands.

She wishes she hadn’t returned so soon.

“You will sit in with the small council tomorrow,” Balon tells her, his black robes stained with salt, as hers were. Boiled leather from stolen cows, made their own, and painted with the blood of their people. Salt, and sea. “Sit in. Listen to what they tell me.”

“As you wish, father,” she bows her head. “I must make sure my men get their supplies to the castle—”

He waves a hand at her. Her teeth grit. Once, near three years ago, her father would have not dismissed her like that. He called her daughter, and called her his heir. But not after what happened at the Dreadfort.

Yara turns on her heel, marching out of the hall with as much fury as she arrived with.

~

“Wine, real honest-to-gods wine, you know, none of this sea-grape fermented pig piss you all call wine, and bread. You know I saw the grain that the smallfolk say is wild grain? I’m sure it’s just tall grass, not real wheat, after what we saw. I didn’t know it was supposed to turn _yellow_ of all things—”

Yara squints in the afternoon sun, watching as her ship is unloaded beneath her and one of her men, standing on an outcropping not too far away. From this point she can see the whole port sprawled out in front of her, with the castle behind her.

Two huge stone jetties jut out on either side of the port, build thousands of years ago by Islanders, protecting the ships from the rough sea just beyond. Within their barriers, like two great arms, they cradle a calm pool of water large enough for four wooden docks and fifty sloops and some hundred skiffs. People scurry about, delivering from merchant ships or plundering ships, Islanders pushing off or pulling in, fish mongers under their huts hollering to sailors of their goods, women air-drying strips of cloth. Whatever activity important enough to happen near the castle, it happened here.

To their east, the town was huddled at the base of the cliffs that held the castle. Ramshackle stone buildings and muddy cobblestone streets made up whatever the city was that had sprung up near castle Pyke. It housed most of those who worked at the castle, originally built for live-in staff who did not fit in the walls of the castle, but expanded when the little port began bringing in goods from Westeros. Merchants often stayed here a night or two, and so the whorehouses and inns were built, and so taverns were built, and so more merchants came, and so forth. Yara had never been in the dank little town, and never intended to. The closest thing she had experienced to a city was Lordsport, and if other cities were like that, she did not care for them.

“…Meat, too. I haven’t had a haunch of pork in some time, you know. I miss meat. I miss the stink of it—”

The open air felt wonderful on Yara’s face, soothing the creases in her brow and the pounding in her head. She could feel the tension building behind her eyes following the conversation with her father. It had gone all backwards, and the simmering anger it left in her belly hadn’t eased at all.

“—bread and ale and a nice girl, I tell you. It’s the only way to return and have all the comforts we are denied out there on the open with all you—”

“Do you ever shut up?” Yara asks, eyeing the man next to her. He’s bright-eyed and young, quite at odds with the rest of her men, who were dark-haired, dark-eyed, and hardened from years at the sea. But Rickon, this one, was bold and clever, and was an unsuspectingly good killer. He’d been one of her crew for nearly five years.

He laughs. “Not often. Come, Yara. Even you can smile about what we’ve got. You’ll be eating like a westerner for weeks. And drinking like one, I might add.”

She does smile. Once, she might’ve even whooped at the fortune, but it doesn’t hit her quite as hard as it used to.

But it is a good thing, the wine and the meat. There wouldn’t be much for the smallfolk, but there was enough to divide between the men and whatever families they might give it to.

Her hand pinches the bridge of her nose. “It’s good,” she admits. “It’s fine.”

Rickon laughs, his hair catching the sun beneath his cap. People joked that Rickon’s father had fucked a Lannister and taken her as a salt wife, producing a son with a mop of yellow hair on his wrinkled little head. For that, many of her men called him the Sea Lion, a name he laughed at, but Yara suspected he quite liked the nickname and took pride it in, no matter how it was meant to tease him.

“So melancholy. _I_ am glad for our plunder,” he shifts on his feet, easing his weight onto his left foot. “I’ll be happy to finally bring my mother some good food before Winter strikes. And some silver to spend at a choice few whorehouses, I suspect.” He looks at Yara from the corner of his eye. “Will you join me?”

Absently, Yara shakes her head. She’s watching as barrels and barrels of ale are being trundled from her ship and to the docks. Beside them lay a more fine-shaped collection of dark, polished barrels. The man who stands nearest them is dark-skinned and dark-eyed. Out of place among the pale-skinned Islanders. She squints.

“No, Yara? Even _you_ must be wanting a woman after so long. Come,” Rickon bumps her shoulder. “Come to the town tonight. The men would be glad of it.”

 _I’m sure they would_ , she thinks to herself. Not all of her men were like Rickon, friendly, yet distanced, who saw her as Captain and captain alone. Some of them saw her for a woman, and it was fine with her, but not in a dark tavern, not with drinks in their bellies. She didn’t feel like rebuffing them, didn’t feel like fucking a whore with them when she refused them.

“Not tonight,” Yara says, annoyed at the glum tone in her voice. “Perhaps later.”

There’s a silence between them. Yara stares at the man by the fine barrels, watching as an Islander approaches him. They exchange words, each bent meant to the others. It’s quick, and the dark-skinned man is in his skiff, rowing furiously to sea. She looks past him and out beyond the jetties. There, barely visible in the sea spray, the misty forms of the colorful Dornish ships.

“How long are we staying?” Rickon’s voice sounds miles away.

“Hm?” Yara responds, eyes on the sea.

“How long will we stay on Pyke, before we go?”

She pulls her eyes away, glancing at him. “Go? Go where?”

Rickon had been there with Yara at the Dreadfort. One of few. He saw the entire thing, and had leapt on the chance to leave Pyke once more when she near lost her mind.

He raises his brow. “We’re not staying long on Pyke, are we?”

The question startles her. She was not easily startled, and yet she can’t find the words. She didn’t know. There was no plan. She had left for fear of her own mind tearing itself to shreds, and before that, left to rescue her brother. But now…

“We are,” she says. “For a time. Enjoy yourself. I have no doubt when we leave again, we will not be back for a while.”

This seemed to satisfy him, but made her queasy. The sense of foreboding she had tried to escape those months before crept up on her, running cold fingers along her spine.

She had been right, something was going to happen. But what? _What?_

The dark-skinned man in the skiff was a speck on the water now. The barrels he had stood guard over were being rolled to an ox-pulled cart. She had to see where those were going.

“Where’s Warn?”

“Overseeing the distribution of the goods. Do you need him?” Rodrick stood straight. Warn Saltborne was good like that. Responsible and steadfast. Unruffled, stoic, and ruthless. It was why he was first mate.

Yara bit the inside of her cheek, watching the Dornish barrels of wine as they trundled along with the oxen cart. “Tell him I need a steward. Someone tough. If he has a man in mind, I’ll take him.”

“A steward?” Rodrick laughs. “I can fix that, captain. My brother ran Lord Harlaw’s house for some time. He’s in town to visit mother. He’d much rather work here than there.”

“Fine. Just get him here today. And,” she rubs her forehead. “Have him get a chambermaid. Or a few. I don’t know. I want my rooms clean before I go back, and judging by the state my father is in, I’d not be surprised if the rats have made quite a home in my castle. And get a cupbearer or three, I’ve a feeling like we’re to drink too much in the next few days.” She grips the pommel of her sword and begins to walk away.

“If I choose a pretty one, can I fuck her?” Rodrick calls after her, but she just waves a hand, eager to find the cart. There was no way a cartful of Dornish wine was going to the castle without her watching.


	3. The Stone Castle

She leaves before the sun is able to rise on the horizon, dressing in her small room, shivering in the cool air. Three loaves of bread and a hunk of cheese rest on the table in the main room, the fire crackling merrily, stoked high with driftwood and seagrass, enough to burn for hours.

Inside her chest, a tiny creature has awoken, gnawing at her heart and lungs. It spoke to her all through the night before as she tossed, restless.

 _Don’t go_ , it had said. _This is a mistake. A mistake_.

And she had agreed. On every hour she had agreed, and promised herself she would stay in her home and serve her father like she should. Work hard in the tavern and get odd jobs to pay off their debts. It made the most sense.

Yet as the island birds screeched at the approach of morning, she had been dressing and pulling on her boots, stoking their fire, and slipping out the door on cat-quiet feet.

The little creature in her chest howled and scratched at her throat, screaming silently _he will know! He’ll notice your absence! Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go…_

But she is outside already, walking briskly in the direction of the castle, looming over Greyedge like a stormcloud, leering at all the townsfolk and their destitution. Mellara hates the sight of it as much as the next, but inside the castle and its towers lay troves of silver and gold for her pocket; if she were lucky.

Because in those restless hours the night before, when the moon grinned down at her from its safe perch in the sky, she had countered her anxious little voice with the memory of her brother’s bloodied weapons and their flight from Old Wyk, their flights from Lordsport and other cities, moving from place to place after her father had committed one crime or another. She had to make sure they would stay in Greyedge if she were to ever flee from the Islands for good.

Gold and silver were excellent ways to buy time. So Mellara walked to the castle in the wee hours of the day, beating down the beast in her chest and straightening her spine.

This day would be colder than the last, and Mellara pulls her threadbare cloak around her shoulders. The last Summer had been long, years and years, she had been but a child when it had began. She hardly could recall what Winter had been like, and wasn’t keen on learning again.

The road to the castle became steep, her breathing laboring. The great stone towers grew larger with each step, and soon looking up at them made her dizzy enough to fall so she turned her eyes down.

Mellara had never been to Pyke castle, despite how close they lived. There had been no need for it. Especially because her father’s deep-rooted hatred of the Greyjoys. One day, perhaps, if anything her father had ever said came to fruition, there might have been a time she would one day walk the halls of Pyke castle—but not while Greyjoys lived.

She forces herself to look up at the towers again. _A castle_. A tiny jolt went through her. She hadn’t heard many stories as a child, but the ones she overheard from old women telling their sons, a kind barmaid at one tavern or another, even the mothers of her brothers, had all spoken of great towering stone buildings, shielding brave Lords and their beautiful Ladies. Mellara had dreamed of castles once, when she was young, of those thin glass planes and the mighty wood drawbridges, of the bloodred Red Keep in King’s Landing, the golden towers of Highgarden. She dreamed herself a Lady, adorned with silk and dripping with jewels, all the young Lords tumbling over themselves for her.

Something was never right about her dreams. She never could tell what, but they faded quickly. Castles became large stone houses, and dreams of silk became tattered woolen dresses. She had no need for dreams, not when she needed to keep her head clear to dodge hands and serve men.

But today she’d get up close to a real castle. A true one. Perhaps even see the riches of Lords and Ladies, riches her father railed against, berated them for. Claimed were his own.

She shakes her head. Even a mile away, she didn’t think of anything but him. Of those depthless eyes that she felt could see her from their stone cottage. Was he awake yet? Did he notice she was missing, or was he too wrapped up in his own scheming and plotting to see? Did the bread and cheese keep him from demanding she serve him?

A sharp noise interrupted her thoughts and she stiffened, jerking her head up. Before her lay the evening out of the land, a large wooden structure, like a house, with many doors and gates around it and…horses? Gray, dappled, with midnight-black manes, snuffling the cold ground. A horse’s neigh, that’s what she heard.

Mellara nearly kicks herself. She had no idea where she was going. She’d taken the main road to the castle, but only because it looked like the right direction. And she’d ended up in the stables.

 _Well_ , she thinks, _close enough_. She steps forward, edging around the paddocks to the main structure, letting herself in through the gate. She unnerved herself with her boldness, but she’d come this far—no need to hesitate any longer.

A few horses in their stalls whickered as she passed, a low, friendly noise. She looks at the horses, torn between wanting to pet their velvety noses and being frightened of their large heads and powerful hooves. Some look back at her with black eyes, shaking out their necks.

It was warm and smelled like hay and animals, and for a moment she hoped she might work here rather than in the castle proper, it seemed like a relief to be among things that couldn’t speak, didn’t have hands, and only wanted hay and their hair brushed.

At the end of the long path between the stalls, a young man was forking hay into a stall. Mellara cleared her throat, swinging her hair in front of her eyes.

He turns to the sound of her, looking surprised to see her shifting on her feet in front of him.

“I’m to find the chamberlain,” she says, her voice stronger than she expects. “Rickon sent me.”

The man looks at her for a few beats, and her chest spasms. For a split second, she wonders if she’d fallen for an elaborate ruse, that the man last night in the tavern had been joking with her. There was no job, no chamberlain to be found, nothing.

“There ain’t no chamberlain,” the man says, halting her panic. She blinks. “I dunno who Rickon is, milady.”

No chamberlain. Her stomach falls. She supposes that meant she should turn around and hike back down the path and to her smoky home, and scrub the tavern tables until they were sawdust. She opens her mouth to thank him, but the door behind him bursts open.

“You, there. You—yes, you, little runt, you take that rake and follow him. Come, the rest of you—no one? No one is left, they gave me three stable boys and think we can run a royal stable? Who’s to feed to horses? Where’s the farrier? Drowned God take me, this is a mess, a well and true mess—who are you?”

Mellara had watched in surprise as the man speaking, with a shock of bright hair and slim-figured, marched his way through the doors and barked orders at the boys scrambling in his wake, directing them this way and that, only to end up speaking to no one and standing in front of her, blinking with frustrated eyes.

“Milord,” she bobbles a little, into what she hopes is a curtsy. “I’ve been sent to work. I’m to find the chamberlain. Rickon sent me.”

A flurry of emotions pass over his face as she speaks, from surprise to annoyance and then into downright anger.

“Rickon!” He explodes. “Good-for-nothing nitwit. I’ve at least two other girls saying the same. Not bad I suppose. We need more chambermaids than I care to admit. Not a single cupbearer quite yet, damn me, and—” he pauses to take a breath, looking at her. “Fine. Fine! Follow me.”

Mellara can’t think. This man—he _must_ be in relation to Rickon, how else would he have that golden hair? He was strung tighter than a bowstring and spoke faster than the wind. She’d never met an Islander with—with _personality_.

“Come!” He trills at her, already moving away. “Come, girl, move your feet. yes, There’s no time.”

She starts after him, pushing down a grin. In their wake, the boys grab rakes and shovels and whatnot and start on the horses. The man in front of her doesn’t spare them a passing glance. She can hear him speaking, but can’t make out the words until she gets closer.

“…woke me and said, ‘Brother, I have a job for you! A good one. The Greyjoys need a new Steward, and I told them you could do it.’ As if I _don’t_ already have a job. And the state of this castle! Nearly ruins, I tell you. A single chambermaid, two cooks,” he pauses long enough to scoff. “I’m to find an army of maids to run this castle in a _day_ , the Lady returning from the sea, directing her crew left and right. I suppose, well, yes, it’s a kind offer. A good one. I can stay home, earn a living wage, a roof over my head…”

She matches his quick pace as he pushes open two wooden doors into the kitchen. Mellara had never seen a kitchen so large, with great, roaring ovens and a huge slab of some type of stone serving as a table, the smell of stew and fish and bread filling her lungs. The man had said there was two cooks, but Mellara counted five as they sped through, passed a room filled with barrels, another with sacks of grain.

“Not even a chamberlain to help me. No, just me, the _steward_ …”

They push through another set of doors, emerging into a long stone hallway, ending in a thin stone staircase that curled up and around on itself. They reach the bottom of the stairs and the Steward stops abruptly, turning to look at her.

“You!” He says, as if he’s surprised to see she’s still following. “What can you do?”

What could she _do_? She stares back at him, equally shocked.

He huffs, crossing his arms. “Well?”

She blinks rapidly. “Cooking. Cleaning, um, I darn clothing and serve food. I work at a tavern, as a barmaid and—“

“Good! Good,” he puts a hand on his chest. “I am Ser Vickon and I am the Steward of Castle Pyke. After I get a chamberlain,” he makes a face. “You will never have to speak to me again. Do you understand? Do. Not. Speak. To. Me. Again,” he stops, looking thoughtful. “ _After_ I get a chamberlain. Come!”

They move again, and Mellara can’t believe the whirlwind of a man he was. And a knight!

The stairs twist and swerve, ever higher, until the trek up the hill seems like an easy climb and they emerge into a larger hall, the floor becoming smoother, the walls lined with torches to let in the light.

Mellara marvels, slightly winded, peering through the slits in the stone that show the outside. She can’t see far, no town beneath them or other, only the sea. But from high up. Much higher than she’d ever been before.

The largeness of it, the expanse. Whatever breath she’d had leaves her lungs.

“…Maids chambers are on the lower levels with the kitchens in each tower. You go to the East Tower there each morning and ask for Marleigh—she’s in charge of the chamber maids, big lump of a woman—and you do what she says. Change the linens, wash clothing, stoke the fires.”

The hall becomes a large room, oblong, dotted with chairs and low-lying tables, a great window looking out to the open water. Mellara loses her breath at the sight of it, at the carved chairs and rich-looking stone tables. Her feet stutter.

“Is this the throne room?” The question slips out before she can think.

Vickon halts, bursting out laughing. “The _throne room_? No—no I should think not. This is just an antechamber or other.”

Mellara stares. It was one of the largest rooms she’d ever seen. With the finest furniture. If this was not the throne room, what could _that_ look like? And the Salt Throne itself?

Vickon beckons to her again and she forces herself to look away, to move. “We are in the East Tower at this moment. To the left,” he points. “Down that hall is the Great Hall. That is where Lord Greyjoy greets _guests_ and hosts dinners. Through the Hall to the right would be the throne room,” he throws her a sharp glance. “You _do not_ go anywhere unless told so. Understand?”

She nods, half-listening, looking down the branching paths. She has no idea how she would keep track of all the twisting halls.

“If you keep west, you’ll reach the bridge to Middle Tower, then to Mideast and Eastern towers. Don’t bother with anything beyond Mideast, they say the Eastern is near ruin, not that I’ve had time to check.” He grumbles the last part. “Lord Greyjoys rooms are in Middle Tower, and Lady Greyjoy’s as well. All the important people reside there, so you’ll do most of the collecting and washing and such in that tower if need be.”

 _Lord Greyjoy_. The name clangs around her head. It was so odd to hear it spoken calmly, and not spit from the lips of her father.

They speed through the stone corridors, the air around them damp and cold. Vickon isn’t wearing a cloak of any sort, he must have been freezing, but he shows no sign of it, his shoulders straight and firm.

“Collect your pay at the end of each week. I’m not going to lie to you, now, girl, until I have a chamberlain I don’t know how much coin will make it into your little pocket. But,” he stops so abruptly that Mellara nearly slams into his back. She catches herself at the last moment, biting her lip. Vickon stands quietly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There’s to be benefits for all of us, I suppose. Perhaps not money but…” he looks in the distance, as if overwhelmed by thoughts.

No coin? Mellara hadn’t the slightest idea of how finances were to work in palaces and whatnot, but she was under the impression by her father and by the general state of the palace that the Greyjoys had _some_ money, and should pay their servants. _She_ would be paid. One way or another.

Vickon lifts his head. “Nonetheless! Too much work to do to dwell on—well, I suppose, no—yes, there girl. Take that corridor down, to the stairs, in the basement you’ll find Marleigh and she’ll give you a task—”

He points a finger at a small doorway, ushering her along. His scattered train of thought returned as quickly as it faded, and Mellara found herself hesitant to leave, too many questions bubbling up through her throat.

She opens her mouth, their eyes meeting briefly, but he looks past her and his face falls into a mask of shock and she turns—

Coming towards them, through the hall, comes a group of people dressed in gray and black, storming their way through the corridor. Mellara sucks in a breath, pressing herself close to the wall and bowing her head, peeking up through her lashes.

It’s a group of men, with a shorter man leading them, longish hair and no beard, angrily speaking to one another, save the leader. Beside her, Vickon bows low, his golden hair flickering in the light.

As the group gets closer, Mellara starts, realizing that the leader of the group of men is _not_ a man, but a woman with a harsh face, short-cropped brown hair, her mouth set in a firm line. Mellara’s stomach flip-flops, her mind whispering, _Yara Greyjoy_.

But which of the angry men was her father, Balon? Why was he not the one to lead these men, but her?

“Lady,” Vickon says as they pass, and Yara halts.

Mellara bites back a gasp at the expression in her eyes, the fire she sees smoldering in their depths. What a _woman_.

“Vickon,” Yara flashes a crooked smile as the men behind her breeze by, still arguing, too fast for Mellara to follow. “How have you been getting on?”

“Quite well, my lady, thank you again.”

Mellara cuts a glance his way, her face still shielded by her hair. Lying bastard.

Yara looks to the men, half-turned. “Good. If you will, have a cupbearer sent to the small council chamber this evening, when King Balon is to have his meeting.”

“Of course,” Vickon inclines his head again. “It will be done.”

Yara doesn’t deign to hear anything more, throwing the briefest of glances Mellara’s way before turning to the men and walking off, her salt-stained robes flapping around her ankles. Mellara watches her go, lifting her head.

There’s a burning feeling—in her chest, her lungs, her stomach. Where Yara’s eyes had raked over her for that second, she felt fire.

“Drowned God bugger me,” Vickon says beside her. Mellara can’t help the shocked giggle that slips out of her mouth.

He glowers at her, and she schools her face into indifference.

“A God-damned cupbearer, of all times—” he looks around, as if someone might appear before him, ready with a jug and goblets, all smiles. But it was only Mellara beside him, and his angry face clears. “You! You, you said you’re a barmaid—oh good, wonderful day, perfect day, yes, yes very good,” he grabs her by the arm. “There,” he gestures to where the men disappeared, where Yara had gone, “Go there. Midday. No—wait, first go beneath, yes, to the maids, show yourself to Marleigh and tell her you’re the cupbearer, yes, you, cupbearer to Lord Balon and Yara, of course, very good, much better than a boy, I suppose.” He laughs under his breath. “Yes, a pretty girl…very good.”

He’s speaking faster than she can follow, her eyes widening with each word, hearing the intention—cupbearer, but not just any cupbearer, cupbearer to the _Lord and Lady Greyjoy_ , her father’s greatest enemies—

“Right! Move on girl, you have your task. Midday,” he squeezes her arm gently, for emphasis. “Midday, and be in the chamber with your jug. Yes? Yes? Good girl, now, go on.”

He pushes her to the door, the door she had been instructed to walk through before her life had taken a violent turn, before she was the cupbearer to the Lord of the Iron Islands.

She presses her hands agains the old wood, their dampness cooling her heated skin.

Mellara can’t feet her feet, can’t hear a thing, as she pushes it open and nearly tumbles down the stairs.

What, Drowned God damn her, had she gotten herself into?


	4. Bend the Knee

Yara thrashed in her bed, restless as dark dreams plagued her sleep. Faces swam behind her eyelids, faces of dead men and her dead brothers, blank eyes and bloated corpses. She swam through the shallow coves of the Islands, her fingers brushing by the floating bodies, stirring the water they rested in.

Their cold fingers would grasp for her, their unspeaking mouths opening and closing, desperate for life. Saltwater poured from their throats in lieu of words, and she pushed past them, into the unending sea.

She gave up on sleep when the stars began winking out, the sky just barely lightening to gray. Her eyes drift to the window and beyond, unfocused, as she calmed her breathing. Nightmares, and nothing more.

The sweat on her skin cooled in the early morning air, her skin pebbling. Cold, it was too cold for comfort. The fire had gone out hours ago, a fire she had set herself, without any sort of chambermaid to assist.

Yara sits up in her bed, the one she had slept in since she was a child, and scrubs her face with her hands. She still feels phantom fingers clinging to her skin and rolls her shoulders, pushing the blankets off her so she may stand.

Out on the sea, with her men, Yara had slept soundly. Perhaps it had been the work of her ship, of maintaining order, of fighting her way through villages and stealing their goods. Perhaps her body had been too tired to dream, and so she slept without disturbance.

Even as she told herself this, reassuring herself that the dreams were merely a result of an overactive body and mind, she knows she is lying. No, even if she worked herself to the bone in Pyke castle, even if she ran herself until she was ragged, she would not sleep soundly.

She pulls on her leather pants in the darkness of the room, discarded in a pile by her bedside. She doesn’t bother with anything else, letting her white linen shirt hang open at her neck, her hair unbound, feet bare as they walk her to the wooden doors to the North.

It was a treat, the stone balcony jutting from the tower. Her first memories were of her mother clutching her hand as they stood out there in the whipping wind, scores of feet above the sea, looking out over the white-crested waves. Her mother would point out into the gray expanse in the direction of Harlaw, and tell Yara about the Ten Towers; squished and rioting with color, where her mother had grown up.

Yara plants her feet on the cool stone, embracing the wind that danced around her. The sun slumbered beneath the horizon still, but the sky was lightening. Her eyes gaze North.

Theon had not been in her dreams this night. His blank, panicked eyes had not haunted her in her sleep, as they did her waking thoughts. Yara decides it is a good thing, for if she saw the dead in her sleep, then it must mean Theon was alive.

As soon as she thinks it, she wonders if it truly was a good thing. Perhaps it would be more merciful to kill him, rather than him live as a man who is broken.

~

Warn is waiting outside her door when she emerges, near frozen from the cold. Winter was coming, and there wasn’t a damn maid to light her fire. She could do it herself, but she hadn’t the time, not when the sun made its appearance and a panicked guard had knocked on her door, relaying a message.

“Warn,” Yara says as greeting, looking past the man and to the guard. Skinny as a whip, not a hair on his chin. A boy? That was who was stationed at her door?

Her tongue runs along her teeth as she breezes past them both, Warn nodding to the guard and following Yara, not speaking.

The halls of her castle were empty, their boots echoing down the gray corridor. When her crew had landed the previous day, she’d stationed them in their usual positions, the sailors and seamen donning leather armor and picking up iron spears, patrolling the castle. Most of the men serving as guards at the castle were Yara’s own men, loyal, hardworking, and close by. Close, so when she declared she would be leaving for another raid, they would all be here to gather. Loyal, so she needn’t worry about assassins. Although with the boy at her door she supposed she wouldn’t have a waking moment to worry, for she’s be dead if there were one after her.

Her men were sometimes part of the city guard, something she had cobbled together following the War of the Five Kings, when Theon had failed so pitifully, and she had relinquished her holds on Westeros for proxies, only to have Lannisters and Starks and other _noble_ houses rip them away once more. Yara had returned home with grand ideas, and commissioned many a man to the city guard, to guard the town at the base of the castle and the castle itself, but it seemed as though in her absence, it had dwindled and become something of a laughingstock.

Yara grinds her teeth. Something else to speak to her father about.

They cross the bridge from Middle Tower to the Mideast, the wooden planks rattling beneath their feet. Once in the official East Tower, as Yara often thought it, the place for Lords’ business and such, she breathes deeply through her nose.

She pushes through the door before her, that lead to a small meeting chamber for the Lords and Ladies of Pyke to hold their diplomatic relations and political volleys.

There’s a great movement around her, the screech of chairs on stone as the men inside stand at her presence.

“Sit,” she says. “I thank you for coming.”

They were rough-looking men, unkempt and dressed in decades-old clothing. Several of them released a strong, fishy odor. Only six were in the room, though she knew there must have been at least ten. Or hoped.

Some stared at her, and others looked to the floor. One in particular could not stop staring at the wrought-iron kraken chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the tentacles gripping dozens of candles. 

Warn remained in front of the door as she claimed a seat at the head of the table, leaning forward on her arms. “I’ve called you here to discuss the fleet.”

A few men shifted. The man staring at the chandelier switched his gaze to her.

One man across from her clears his throat. He’s nondescript, rough and dark like every other man on the Islands. “Of course, milady. What can we tell you?”

“An update. How many ships have been built? When will they be ready to sail? I want details, the cannons on each, firepower, how many men to man each ship.” She unfurls her hands as a plea.

The man who was entranced with the chandelier barks out a laugh. Yara stares at him.

“Do you have something to say?”

He chuckles again, taking off his sea cap to ruffle his dark hair. “Nothing of worth, milady.”

Yara clenches her jaw. “I’m sure it’s worth something if you find it so amusing.”

The first man who spoke pipes up. “We’re doing the best we can, Lady Greyjoy. The Winter is approaching fast, and that hinders our progress.”

The room feels suffocating. It’s as if she can only breathe in the stink of fish and disappointment.

“I’d like you to be candid,” Yara looks at each man. “Tell me of the fleet.”

No one spoke, not even the man who laughed.

Quiet Warn eventually steps forward, grumbling in his deep voice: “Your Lady asked a question.”

A few men peeked at the giant over Yara’s shoulder. She resisted rolling her eyes. She needn’t have a boulder of a man to intimidate Islanders, Yara herself was enough. It was Balon’s unreasonable wrath that kept them silent.

“I promise no harm will come to you if you tell me the truth,” Yara says, trying to soften her voice. She had never been good at playacting merciful. “Your King has instructed me to familiarize myself with the fleet in order to lead it.” Well enough, she had assumed in his state Balon would never sail again. It might have been true.

“My Lady,” the man who stared at the chandelier gives her a knowing smile. “There is no fleet.”

Yara blinks. “Come again?”

“What he means,” the man at the head of the table interrupts. “There has been very little progress. You see,” he glances at the others around him, who avoid his eyes. “We’ve no funding. There’s little lumber for ships, and even less money for the men.”

“I don’t understand,” Yara laces her fingers together. “My father emptied the coffers for this project.”

The man begins to sweat. “With all due respect, my lady…the coffers were already empty.”

Yara hears a ringing in her ears. “I see.” She leans back in her chair, hoping that her face remains unchanged. “That would make it quite difficult to build a fleet.”

There’s a chorus of uneasy laughter. Yara can’t bring herself to join in, staring at a scratch on the stone floor.

“Well,” she musters every bit of willpower she possesses to stand. “Thank you, gentlemen, for coming at the call. I pray you the best health and progress on your way.”

What else could she say? Keep building these useless ships in the face of Winter with no money? She couldn’t promise them funds if the coffers were empty, she couldn’t promise them food if there was none, she could hardly promise them stability if her father teetered at the brink of insanity each morning.

The men stand with her, bowing their heads. Before she turns, the chandelier man gave her a wink. Her stomach clenched.

As she exits the small room, sweeping into the hall, she murmurs to Warn. “Don’t let that man leave the castle. Get him to a room so I may speak to him later.”

Warn nods sharply, peeling off to the left as she continues her way to the Mideast. The sun filters in weakly through the stone windows, just barely warming the cold stone. She kept a furious pace, her head whirling with things she’d shout at her father when she found him.

_The royal coffers,_ she would start. _Where have they gone? What whores and winers have our money in their deep pockets? Have you spent yet another ton of our people’s silver on a useless campaign to show the West the power of the Islands?_

Behind her eyes, the hungry faces of the people from the small town at the base of the castle watch her. Her people were struggling, without the foolishness of her father. The islands had raised her, beaten her into an unbreakable sword, the sea had sung to her as she grew. And what did she have in return?

Outside of her father’s door, she pauses with her fist raised. _Would it matter what I said?_

The day earlier, she had berated him for letting the Dornish on her shores. What had he done? Waved her off, given her a speech about the might of the Islands.

Her hand drops. There was a reason she had leapt on her ship at the earliest opportunity. How long had she known she couldn’t rely on her father to rule? Why had she run from it?

Before she could begin to feel shock at the statement, a chorus of voices erupt behind her. She whirls, hand on her sword.

But it’s nobody, just the collection of men from her father’s small council. She recognizes some—Sargon Botley, Master of War, Beron Blacktyde, Master of Coin, her uncle Aeron, the Drowned Man, and Hotho Harlaw, whose official title remained Lord Commander, though there was no true Kinsguard, and most knew he was essentially Hand of the King. The others she did not have names for, unrecognizable men who must have been placed in her absence. If anything, her anger riots to an inferno.

They approach Yara at her father’s door, only Hotho pausing to give Yara the barest of smiles. He had always been kind, but so where the people on Harlaw, with their mild weathers and temperate climate. Pyke had no such leeway.

“My Lady!” Beron Blacktyde skitters to a stop, his heaving gut nearly crashing into her. “Apologies. We did not see you.”

The others, still yammering, fall silent and still, blinking at Yara like baby birds gaping at their mother. Yara wishes she were a bit of sea mist.

“Are you here to see my father the King?” Yara demands, as if she herself weren’t about to bring down his door.

“We were,” Hotho steps around Beron. “It’s long past the time of our meeting. We came to see if he were in any distress.”

_Not likely,_ Yara thinks while simultaneously being glad for Hotho’s quick tongue.

She brings herself straighter. The sea called to her from the windows, the cool breeze beckoning her skin. But she kept her mind on the solidity of the stone castle, the rage at seeing her people so poorly cared for.

“I have just spoken to my father,” she says. “I am to be in attendance at the meeting in his stead.”

It was half-true. Balon had requested Yara be there, but hadn’t implied he would be absent. She was making the decision for him.

Some of the unfamiliar men exchange glances, but Hotho’s eyes flicker with pride. “Very well,” he says.

It’s in his voice that Yara can sometimes hear her mother, the late sister of Lord Harlaw. Though they had barely seen each other in adulthood, Yara’s mother had spoken fondly of her elder Hotho, and after her death, Hotho had come to Pyke to serve as Commander. He knew Yara better than any of the rest.

But she could not dwell on the nostalgia of it. The men must see her as a leader. So, she squares her shoulders and marches past their group, leading them back through the Middle Tower and to the Mideast. Behind her, the men continued their jabbering. What they could possibly be arguing about, she couldn’t know. So she ignores them.

It’s only on their way to the small council room that Yara pauses, catching sight of a flashing blonde head.

Vickon, brother of Rickon. The steward he had promised. Yara hadn’t been able to spare a thought about it, trusting Rickon to secure the help she needed. Although her fireplace had been empty this morning, it was a promising sight to see the small man in her castle.

“Lady,” Vickon bows his head.

Yara slows, figuring she must stop and be courteous. “Vickon,” she grins at his blonde hair. Sea Lion indeed.

“Quite well, my lady, thank you again.”

Yara wants to laugh. As if being steward of this wretched place were some position he need thank her for. She wants to tell him what a nasty shock he’s in for, but she has other things in mind.

She looks at the men, who have swept past and into the small council chamber. It was early yet, but Yara knew she wouldn’t be able to sit through their droning without help. “Good. If you will, have a cupbearer sent to the small council chamber midday, when King Balon is to have his meeting.” Best be telling the servants that _King_ Balon was alive an well, even if she were poised to drink his entire cache of wine.

“Of course,” Vickon says formally, bowing his head. “It will be done.”

Yara feels the laugh again. Briefly, she glances at the figure beside him, catching sight of lank black hair and a turned down face. She feels a tiny urge to snap at the girl and tell her to go light a fire in her rooms, but turns away beforehand.

She would save her fire for the council chamber. Drowned God knew she needed it.


	5. Winter's Wine

It is one thing to be nervous in a dirty, dark tavern with men twice her size and ale the color of piss sloshing over her arms. It is quite another to feel the panic of cowering by a gilded door in a cavernous stone room, in the presence of the handful of people who ruled her Island home, clutching a jug of Western-pressed grape wine.

Their voices are one sound to Mellara, a single wave of angry, sharp statements and probing questions. They’re not like the men in the tavern. These men are somewhat clean, their thick hair combed and shining, their salt-stained robes new and hardy leather. The only man who Mellara could identify with was the Drowned Man with his white hair and stringy clothing, looking as if he had just dragged himself from the gutter to make an appearance at the meeting. Mellara knew the order of the Drowned Men quite well, their mournful song drifting from the seashore in the deep depths of night, their stark eyes following vagrants and townspeople with cold conviction.

“They’re foolish fanatics,” her father would spit as they drifted by. “Worshipping the Drowned God as if they’re already dead. Worthless.”

Mellara couldn’t help but agree. It was one thing to fear and respect the Drowned God like any sane person should, it’s quite another to hunger for the cool fingers of the sea.

Yet, the man’s presence at the table took the edge off the indimidation. At least one of them seemed a bit like a commoner.

Mellara has never felt so out of place. After Vickon had instructed her to serve, he’s sent her whirling down the stairs and into the kitchen to fetch jugs. A fat woman with big, kind eyes and rough hands had scrubbed her face and clucked at her dirty apron, fetching her a new gray one. She had been Marleigh, in charge of the maids in the castle. She hadn’t said many words to Mellara, just simple, _Don’t speak unless spoken to,_ and _Don’t let their glasses empty, girl,_ and _if you spill on the Lady best hope she’s in a good mood_.

Mellara hadn’t had time to feel her fear before she was sent scurrying back up the dizzying tower stairs and ushered into the small council chamber. When the huge door had heaved closed behind her by the men with pikes stationed outside, Mellara had trembled and clutched the jug to her chest. She had thought she may darn some sheets or labor away over a barrel of washwater, not serving her father’s second greatest enemy.

_What if she recognizes me?_ Mellara had thought. Then, immediately batted it away. What would Yara Greyjoy know of her? Of her father? Their names were simple rumor to the Greyjoys, distant threats.

Though her father would never say so, Mellara enjoyed the traitorous thought.

She’d stood, cowering by the door for quite some time, jumping at every sound. Where were the men? When was the meeting to happen? Had she come too soon, too late? Would Vickon burst in and scold her for her poor timing and send her home empty-handed?

The thoughts spun until they exhausted themselves, and her arms grew tired from the jug. In the candlelight, the room became more visible. It was only then could she admire where she had been dropped.

For, truly, the room was quite spectacular. It was round, at the very top of the Mideast tower, small windows whistling with ocean air. A massive chandelier in the shape of a kraken dripped with half-melted candles over the iron tentacles, hanging from a rusty chain from the domed ceiling. Beneath it, a slab of shiny stone in the shape of the Iron Islands were surrounded by leather-bound chairs and scattered with thick maps.

Mellara takes a slight step forward. The maps. What could be on those that she had not seen yet?

But as soon as her foot slipped, the doors smacked open. Mellara had reeled back to the wall, but no one had seen her. Instead, the same angry group of men filed in, ignoring her, and took their seats. She lurched into action, slopping wine into each goblet. Her hands shook. This was no tavern table.

Yet she managed, and hurried back to her post. The men didn’t spare her a single glance.

Lastly, Yara had swept in the room, purposeful and determined. Mellara felt her chest constrict as she poured her glass. Time seemed to slow.

Then, she was gone yet again. Now, Mellara felt her eyelids heavy as the hours tick by, the same yelling and demands circling around the jagged tables.

Yara sighs, pinching her nose. She held her goblet high. “Winter is coming, gentlemen.”

Mellara darts forward, pouring a stream of rich purple wine into her cup.

“We’re aware, milady. It doesn’t change the facts.” A fat man said, his second chin wobbling with every word. Mellara had gathered this man was a banker of some sort. He was the one to protest the loudest when the topic of money had arisen.

“We’ve need of money before all else,” another man with a calm tenor says gently. “Without funds, what can we do?”

“Survive,” says a squirrely fellow with a sharp chin. “We’ve done it before. The Islands don’t fall to something as meek as Winter.”

“An admirable statement,” Yara says drily. “That will not keep out people from starving. I’m looking for a more substantial solution, Lord Sarrow.”

The squirrely man sniffs. “I’m not the one for solutions. I simply gather information.”

“Will your information get us more money?” the fat man snaps. The two glower at one another.

Mellara watches Yara from beneath her hair. What would she do? Scoff at the men, declare the entire issue null? Let the peasants starve while she cuddled in her castle?

“I’ve an idea to send out raiding parties,” Yara offers. “Gather supplies before Winter comes.”

“And who would be in those parties?” the soft-spoken man says. “Your men? The townspeople? To gather parties large enough for the Islands would take some time.”

“Time we don’t have,” Yara seems to agree. “Tell me, Hotho. How do the outer Islands fare?”

The gentle man taps his fingers over the iron goblet. “Harlaw has stockpiled enough for a two-year winter. Blacktyde suffers still from the loss of their men from the earlier war effort. Old Wyk and Great Wyk are seeing loss of crop and loss of cattle. Orkmont does well, we’ve made progress with their stockpile as well. And Saltcliffe…” the man sighs. “Very little word.”

It seems to be dire. Mellara recognizes the names of the islands. She had lived on nearly every one as her family bounced from rock to rock, avoiding whatever threat her father had perceived. None seemed to be better than Pyke, or worse.

_It’s your fault,_ she thinks at Yara. _You and your father ruined them._

Yara doesn’t seem unaffected, however, her eyes dark and brooding. She doesn’t have much to say to the gentle man’s report.

“I’ll need specifics,” she says to the man. “I want numbers. And Gorthode,” She looks to another man. “Ships to spread resources. If we cannot raid, we must share at the very least.”

This sends a ripple through the small collection, and a similar one through Mellara. She wants to laugh—share? Since when had the islands _shared_? For as long as their bloody history stretched, it was clear that each Island regarded themselves as a tiny kingdom in and of their own, ruled by their own king with their own laws and their own customs. When Balon had rose to power, he had united the islands by a similar cause, one to take back their lands in the West.

But Mellara knew that Balon was power-hungry, wanted the Islands for his own. They had united under his cruelty, only to be screwed over by his failure, beaten to pulp by Robert Baratheon. Balon and his spawn were the reason the Islands still suffered, no matter how Yara appeared to care.

A man clears his throat. “My Lady, I’ll spare as many ships as it takes to spread the wheat and wine you’ve brought us. But I’ve more dire concerns.”

Yara sips her wine. “Go on.”

“The fleet, My Lady. The Iron Warships and Salt Armies. They are…”

“Not done. I’m aware.”

“My Lady, they have barely begun. We’ve no lumber, we’ve no money—”

Yara holds up her hand. “I know this, Gorthode.”

The man looks startled. “Then you know how we struggle, My Lady. We look for direction from the King.”

Yara’s face looks sour, her eyes narrowed. “The King implores you hasten on those ships already built, and then cease.”

Another ripple of unease.

“Cease?” the man looks shocked. “My Lady, the West—”

“The West is not our home. The Islands are. I—The _King_ will not see the people suffer.” Yara takes another pull of wine.

“The _King_ intends to invade the west,” someone else pipes up. An angry man, small and shriveled. He had been one of the loudest and more impudent than the others. “He wishes to take back the Riverlands.”

“We held them once,” Gorthode nods wisely. “We may do it again.”

“Have we not already tried?” the angry man snaps. “We lost an heir and scores of men.”

They dissolve into debate. Mellara watches Yara lean back. She doesn’t seem to be quite listening, her eyes straying over the map.

Quickly, Mellara comes forward to fill Yara’s glass. Her eyes scrape over the expanse of paper, catching the names. _Cape of Eagles, Seagard, Ravertree Hall._

The jug yanks up, the cup filled to the top.

Quietly, but enough so Mellara can hear, Yara says, “Thank you.”

Mellara blinks, retreating. _Yara is quite the actress_ , she thinks.

The arguing goes on for quite some time, growing louder and louder. Mellara watches as Yara and the man, Hotho, exchange a glance.

Finally, Yara stands. The conversation peters out, each man turning to look at her. She plants her fists on the table, looking at each one.

“I have heard your words,” she begins. “Lord Sarrow,” she looks at the squirrely man. “You are released from your position as Master of Whispers.”

The room is deathly quiet. The squirrely man goes purple with rage, his mouth opening and closing. Yara holds his gaze until he eventually stands, pointing a silent, accusing finger, and then storming out of the room. They all watch him go. Mellara sees his little feet scurry through the curtain of her hair.

When the door slams shut, Yara looks back at the few men remaining. “Lord Hotho, I rename you Hand of the King. The rest of you may go. Hotho, stay.”

Mellara counts as the rest rise. The fat man first, the one who loved money. Then the loud man with the ships, a hard man with a battle-axe on his hip, a quiet man with no real argument to anything. Then the Drowend Man, who looks at Yara with spears in his eyes.

It was curious, Mellara thinks as the men bow. Very curious. For Balon was King, yet the men were slowly giving her the impression that Yara held quite a bit of power here. Why wouldn’t she, though, if there were no male heirs left? Her younger brother had disappeared after the Islands attack on Winterfell, her elders had been slaughtered when she was a child. However, Mellara couldn’t conceptualize that all these men bowed their head to a woman. What would it feel like to have Wolfgur bend his head to _her_? For Halleck and Hagon fetch _her_ wine?

Mellara shakes herself. This was wrong—Yara was power-hungry. Her father as well. They had dashed the Islands to shreds before Mellara had been born. They had taken everything from her family, from their people. They stayed in power by stepping on the heads of those lesser than they.

But the words have less of a punch as the room grows quiet. Mellara wonder if she should have filed out with the others, but Lord Hotho crooks his finger at her.

“More wine.”

She fills their glasses quickly, scanning some papers before turning. One reads, _in the event of the return of Theon Greyjoy, the North is willing and able to send ample forces to secure his capture and demands payment for his crimes—_

Mellara backs away, hiding in shadow.

The two people drink. Yara sighs.

“That went very well.” The man says into his goblet.

Yara barks out a laugh. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, uncle. Tell me, which was your favorite part? When Sarrow demanded the people live on ideals or when Beron announced that the Islands are out of money?”

“I admit, I cannot name a favorite among all the events we endured,” Hotho smiles good-naturedly.

To Mellara’s utter surprise, Yara lets her face fall in her hand. “What am I to do with this?” Yara groans. “I should have never returned.”

“I disagree. I believe you should have never been born. What’s twenty-some years down the drain?”

Yara laughs, muffled by her hand. “What a pleasure, to never have existed.”

“Too easy for us, my dear. Now lift your head. This is not something worth falling apart over.” Hotho says mildly.

_Isn’t it?_ Mellara thinks.

But Yara straightens, shaking back her short hair. The fire Mellara had seen burned deep in Yara’s eyes, and Mellara had a strange feeling. She herself would fold beneath a dozen silver debt. Yara had been faced with terror on terror just moments ago, yet her fists looked ready to swing. Where did she find such passion.

“I’ll not let the Islands fall apart while I’m here,” Yara says decidedly.

“And how long will that be?”

“Longer than usual. I spoke with my father two mornings ago.”

“Did you? I haven’t seen Balon in some weeks.”

Mellara hangs on to every word. The King, Balon, had been secluded for weeks?

“My point exactly,” Yara murmurs. “It’s clear he hasn’t been to a small council meeting either. Lord Sarrow, Master of Whispers? I’d sooner trust a gull to share its fish.”

“It was a poor decision,” Hotho agrees. “But your father has not had the most clear ideas of late.”

“I’m aware,” Yara says, one of her most favorite phrases to use. Mellara senses a bit of exasperation. “The fleet, commissioned those months ago? Where has the money gone, Hotho?”

Hotho stretches his legs, studying the floor. “Here and there, Yara. To the war, to the Kings of Westeros. The Islanders are not a wealthy people. We’ve no trade, no debtors, no prospects.”

“You’re in a cheerful mood,” Yara grumbles.

“I’m saying what your father declines to hear,” Hotho’s voice becomes more serious, losing its gentle edge. “We are in a perilous position, my dear. Change is needed desperately.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Yara stands abruptly, pacing the room. Mellara watches her long legs as they cover large portions of ground, the steady line of her shoulders. Her chin never dipped to her chest, her eyes never flicked to the ground. She tightens her hold on the jug.

“Theon remains missing,” Hotho continues. “Balon is faltering. Yara, there are precious little options—”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Yara holds up a hand. “Not now.”

“But you must,” Hotho leans forward on his elbows. “The truth is fast approaching. We cannot continue this way. You must be aware of what it means for you, for the Islands.”

“Hotho,” Yara stops, glaring at him. “My father is the King. I am his daughter, his heir. I serve the Islands with every breath. But I will not take his place.”

Mellara’s head is reeling. _Take his place? Meaning, become…Queen?_ There had never been a Queen. It was laughable—the Islanders respected women like they respected their privy.

Hotho tracks Yara as she begins to pace again. “Peace, my dear. I only wish to warn you of the worst, so you will be prepared. Nothing is set,” he glances at Mellara, to her surprise, and raises a hand. She hurries, extending her jug, emptying the last into his goblet. She holds her breath as she fills Yara’s cup.

There are long moments of silence where Hotho sips his wine, and Yara continues stomping over the floor. Finally, she halts. “I have business to attend to,” she says to Hotho. “I’ll be seeing you soon enough.”

Hotho nods, but Mellara can tell there’s more he wishes to say. But Yara’s stormy eyes halt him. He stands, giving her a small nod, and leaves the chamber.

Mellara freezes, alone in the room with Yara. Panicked thoughts whirl in her head as her hands hold the empty jug. Had Yara finally recognized her—her traitorous scent, and was going to question her? Would her careful façade drop, and would she begin to laugh at the misfortune of the people? Would she lounge with her boots atop the table and guzzle her wine, cackling with Greyjoy selfishness?

But nothing happened. Yara had her back to Mellara, peering out one of the stone windows. She sighs, and speaks with her back still turned.

“You may go.”

Mellara blinks. Had Yara known she was there the whole time? No one had looked at her this whole day.

Unsure, Mellara creeps to the door. But Yara says nothing else.

Mellara grasps the cold handle and pulls herself through. As soon as she’s out of the room, a great sigh escapes her. Tension leaks from her shoulders and neck, her jug slumping in her hands. Her feet ache as they carry her to the nearest staircase.

In the kitchens, she leaves the jug beside the washbins, rubbing her worn palm on her dress. The kitchens steam with fish stew and the smell of baking bread. Mellara’s stomach rumbles.

She finds Marleigh playing a hand of cards with a portly man and a slip of a girl around a small wooden table.

Marleigh doesn’t look up at her. “Grab a bite, girlie.”

Mellara blinks. The sun was beginning to slip past the horizon—she had to be heading home soon. “I…I need to be paid.” She says quietly.

Marleigh smacks her lips, setting down a card. The portly man laughs.

“Take some bread,” Marleigh says again, ignoring Mellara’s insistence. Mellara turns, reluctantly reaching for a hunk of creamy, yellow bread from a counter. Marleigh grunts in approval.

“Did it go well, then?” Marleigh says. Mellara pauses, shifting on her feet. Was it so normal to have a conversation with those she works with?

“Rumor has it Yara is twice as cruel as Balon and thrice as pungent,” Marleigh says, which Mellara takes as chit-chat. Mellara didn’t quite engage in chit-chat often.

The portly man laughs again. “I’ve heard Yara is the King in disguise, a wig of seagrass on her head. That’s how she gets so many women, you know? A cock of iron, she has.”

Mellara frowns. Yara had definitely seemed like a born woman.

“Well?” Marleigh finally looks at Mellara. “What’s she like, then?”

Mellara pauses. What is she to say? That Yara seemed like just about any noble, much more well-spoken and well-dressed than ordinary people? That she seemed to possess all the strength and ferocity of the sea in her eyes? That somehow, Yara didn’t give Mellara any reason to think she was selfish or horrid or murderous like her father said?

“She…” Mellara’s voice is rough from unuse. She clears her throat. “She’s very…strong.”

The collection of servants laugh.

“Strong indeed,” says Marleigh. “Strong enough to captain her own ship for all these years.” Was there a hint of admiration in her voice? She sighs. “Haven’t seen the gril in years, really. Heard she was in quite a state after the North sent the ransom for Theon.”

There, again, the mention of Theon. Mellara knew bits and pieces of what had happened to the youngest Greyjoy, his sudden return to Pyke, then his sudden exit, and his absence. But the ransom…the letter…

Mellara shakes herself. “Will I get paid today?” she tries to sound as strong as Yara did when she dismissed Sarrow.

Marleigh looks down at her cards as she fishes in her pockets, unearthing a few copper pennies. Mellara counts. Four. She had been promised ten.

But she takes the pennies without complaint.

“Come back tomorrow,” Marleigh says as Mellara turns. “You’ll be serving the Lady again.”

Mellara shivers, listening to the laughter of the table as she winds her way through the tower. Her head feels as though it’s ripe to burst.

Her feet carry her out the way she came. She can’t believe it’s been an entire day, standing in Pyke castle, serving the Lords and Ladies her father was sworn to destroy. The thoughts overwhelm her, and she stops dead in the stables, surrounded by the quiet snuffling of horses.

Slowly, she approaches one of the beasts, holding out her palm. “Hello,” she says to it. “Please don’t bite me.”

The horse sniffs her hand and upon seeing she has no food, goes back to chewing on the hay in its stall.

She leans against the stall door, breathing deeply in her nose. The beast inside her chest from that morning has woken once more, screaming to her all the things that had happened in the span of a few hours.

_I have a job in Pyke castle. My father doesn’t know. I served the Lady Yara, heard all her plans. My father doesn’t know. I got paid copper pennies today. My father doesn’t know._

Panic seizes her. What had she been thinking that morning, taking this job? It was beyond foolish, putting herself in this position. But the money jangled in her pocket, reminding her of her very first purpose. It was meager, the money, even if the Islands were broke. But a penny here, a penny for her boat…in a few weeks, Mellara may be able to sail.

She looks at the bread. Provisions. She could steal from the castle, silver dishes and candelabras.

“Ha!” the laugh comes suddenly. She was really mad, now. Stealing from the castle was punishable by death.

_And?_ She thinks, reaching for the horse, petting its velvety nose. _Which is better, death by axe, or your father’s hands?_

He would kill her, she knew, if she were caught serving the Greyjoys. After all, what was worse that she could do?

But in her mind, words echo. _Balon is faltering. Theon is still missing_. Precious bits of information, behind thick stone walls. Information her father had been scheming for.

The realization hits her like a brick. She was in the castle. She was closest to Yara.

The horse rears its head back as Mellara’s nails dig into its nose.

She apologizes profusely, blinking in panic. She was more than blind, she was blind and dumb. Mellara had put herself in a _strong_ position, not a weak one.

She had wondered what it would be like to have Wolfgur bow to her, for Halleck and Hagon to serve at her feet. And wouldn’t they, if she could bring Yara’s most secret information to her father? Wouldn’t they all bend the knee to her, a girl who could unearth the Greyjoy’s plans from the source?

Mellara stares at the horse, who stares back. “Am I crazy?” she says to the horse.

“Naw,” a voice startles her, coming from somewhere in the stables. “I talk to ‘em too.”

Mellara stares at the stablehand, who had greeted her that morning. “I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I thought I was alone.”

The stablehand lifts a shoulder, unbothered. “Talkin’ to horses ain’t crazy. Jus how it is.”

She gives a tiny laugh before patting the horse on the nose and turning to the door, taking the road with small, careful steps. She had to think this through.

Her father had shown her years of mercy for what Mellara could do. For he did not make his sons serve him, do his laundry, nor cook his food. His sons were his soldiers and his pawns, Mellara was their maid. Though a daughter, she only held her position from her dead mothers graces. It was Island tradition, even a daughter deformed or sickly, a son dumb and deaf, was to be cared for if produced by a stone wife. It was the way things were. And her father was nothing if not traditional. He was bound to Island tradition how the clouds were bound to the sky.

But if Mellara could have information, if Mellara had something her father wanted, she may be more than a servant. No more grueling days of work, no more suffering under the hands of men, no more beating oats into slop or serving ale late into the evening. She touches the necklace at her throat.

The road is long back home. She walks slowly, finding herself reluctant to go home. She hadn’t remembered a day in years when she had so much time to herself. The sun spins low in the sky, casting orange and gold light over the muddy roads, washing the stone houses with crimson.

Distantly, the sea sings to her. The crash of the waves is gentle, and she imagines the sea calm and light blue, sparkling with rubies as the sun sets over it. Beautiful, and terrible.

The town is beginning to light its lanterns as she makes her way from the west, only realizing at her doorstep that she still wears the navy apron from the castle. She unties it quickly, balling the fabric in her fist as she opens the door.

It swings open creakily. She cringes, stepping in quickly. The fire is low in the grate, the room smokey and dim. Quiet voices come from the large table. She skirts through the room, eyeing the people. Her brothers sit with tankards, her father at the head with his wheeled chair.

None notice her. She freezes, unsure how to approach.

Then, Wolfgur spots her. “Mellie! Get us some ale, would you?”

“Is that bread?” Halleck says, leaping up from his place. He grabs the hunk from her, only to have it ripped away by Hagon.

Mellara can only blink. There’s a soft spot in her heart for the twins, who never knew her as their sister, only as a housegirl. They never intended to be cruel, they just couldn’t imagine her as an equal.

But Wolfgur, with his beady eyes and thin beard, glares. “Where have you been?”

Her father holds up a hand. “Enough, Wolfgur. Your sister works for your meals.”

It was a surprising defense. He must be in a good mood.

“Apologies,” she says nonetheless, creeping to the table. “Saed kept me late.” The lie is smooth. 

Her father doesn’t even look at her. “Ale, if you will.”

Mellara is grateful for the excuse to run upstairs, taking her time to breathe while she lugs down the heavy barrel. _Father_ , she thinks. _I have information of Yara Greyjoy._ Or should she go right into it? _Father, the North is on the hunt for Theon. Balon is fading. Yara has dismissed her Master of Whispers_.

When she brings the barrel to the table, another man has joined. She recognizes the deep blue eyes and missing tooth, the scarred hands. Harren Half-Hoare leers at her from the table.

“Sweet Mellie,” he says, using her brother’s mocking nickname. “Pour me a drink, will you?”

The words all stop in her throat. Her hands begin to tremble as she sets the barrel on the table. She sweeps their cups under the steady flow, grateful it’s ale and not the sweet red wine from the day before.

When she sets their cups down, she notices her father’s smile, his glowing look. What had Half-Hoare brought him?

She glances at her brothers. There were too many people for her to announce her position. But if not now, when? When her father was angry? When he had forgotten her once more?

“F—Father,” her voice is weak, barely above a whisper.

“You won’t believe it,” Half-Hoare is saying. “I still don’t believe it myself.”

Halleck and Hagon are crowing in triumph at some joke or another. Her father looks enraptured by Half-Hoare.

“Father,” Mellara attempts to say again. “Excuse me.”

The talk continues. Mellara steels herself, remembering how Yara had put her fisted hands on the table.

“Father!”

The table goes silent. The men all turn to look at her, each one of their faces agape, except her father’s. His was cold, closed.

“Girl,” he growls. “Don’t interrupt.”

Her mouth goes cold, her lips numb. “I—I have something—I—” each word is broken off, strangled before they take off.

Wolfgur begins laughing. “She’s lost her tongue, father!” Halleck and Hagon join in.

Mellara blinks rapidly, trying to force the words out. _I serve_ _Yara Greyjoy, father. I can tell you her secrets_.

But her father’s eyes are swallowing her whole, are eclipsing the warmth she had felt earlier. Inside her head, she hears screaming. Old bruises throb.

“Useless girl,” her father growls. His hand reaches out and pinches her forearm roughly, twisting her skin. She cries out.

“Out of my sight, girl. I’ve taught you better than to interrupt when the men are speaking.”

She can’t hear anything but her brothers’ laughs and Half-Hoare’s chuckle. She can’t see—only her father’s eyes and the black of the stone walls. Everything in her has gone icy and cold.

When he releases her, she goes falling back, barely catching herself before she falls into the mud of their stone home. She cradles her throbbing arm, taking off up the stairs. She pauses out of sight, listening after her humiliation. Tears fall quietly down her cheeks.

“Idiot girl,” her father says. “She got that from her mother.”

“Women are made for the bed and the kitchen,” Half-Hoare agrees. “Not much else.

Her father grunts.

“You know the candles they have up there,” Half-Hoare begins to say, switching paces. “All dripping down the walls. Each chandelier is a kraken. Imagine how many ships that would buy you?”

Mellara can’t listen anymore. They dismissed her so swiftly, as if she hadn’t been there at all. Her father didn’t give her a second thought. If only he had known what she had to offer.

She drags herself up the stairs and to the attic, her arm wailing in pain. The pain worked its way up her shoulder and across her chest, throbbing with each beat of her heart. What had she been thinking?

Her bed is hard beneath her legs, but she sits gratefully. It was only an hour or two longer before she needed to go to the tavern. An hour to mourn whatever foolish thought had bloomed in her mind. 

There was nothing she could do to win her father over. That had been a truth so long as she could think for herself. When she was eight, she began the washing. Ten, the cooking. Eleven, she had been working at the tavern. Fourteen, fifteen, she served her brothers. Sixteen, she had cared for her infant cousin until he could walk. Mellara was nothing to her father but a maid with his blood, something he kept around for the sake of tradition. Even with useful information, she would never be anything more, and it was ridiculous to think beyond that.

The thoughts envelop her mind, dully painful. She had let her fantasy carry away all rationale, and she was paying for it. Only the real things mattered.

She takes the pennies from her pocket. She would not pay of Saed’s debt. She would not provide her father with information. No, Mellara would work and would steal, she would do what she could, and keep the memory of the tiny boat in her lagoon in the forefront of her mind. Whatever it took, Mellara would leave the Isalnds.


	6. Triumph of the Crown

The sea calls to her like a mournful lover, singing outside the window. Yara leans to it, breathing in the cool air. It’s a welcome rush, the clean, fresh scent of salt and Winter.

It’s a luxury. Hotho’s words whisper to her, _The truth is fast approaching. We cannot continue this way. You must be aware of what it means for you, for the Islands._

There was no time to dwell. Yara pushes the thoughts out of her mind for another day, turning on her heel and yanking open the doors to the small council chamber.

“Where is Warn?” she snaps to one of her guards, men stationed outside the door and assigned to flanking her through the castle. They sail with her as well. All her guards were her men.

“We’ll take you to ‘im,” one says, nodding to the other. “He’s got the man you asked for.”

Yara nods, following close behind her men. She knows them both, young Belgor and older Staven, two men from Saltcliffe. Belgor had a sister who had just barely reached thirteen this past year, struggling against the repercussions of a terrible childhood fever. He had a sweet tooth and drank more ale than she had ever seen. Staven was a family man, with a faithful wife and seven sons who looked like copies of him. He was skilled with a knife but preferred a bow, the best shot Yara had ever known.

They take her through the Mideast Tower and across the shaky wood bridge, the sea spitting spray up their trousers. In the East Tower, they take the stairs quickly, arriving in a small chamber meant for guests. Drapery in gold and navy assaults Yara’s eyes as she steps in, shivering from the cold.

Warn stands before a chair, where the man from the meeting with the fleetmasters sat. He seemed to care less about the chandeliers now, looking right at Yara. She waits for a flicker of nervousness, but the man only smiles.

“My Lady,” he says, though it appears to her as mocking. Warn blinks at her before stepping around Yara, joining Staven and Belgor outside.

Yara inclines her head. “Your name?”

The man smiles. “Harris, my good Lady.”

“And your surname?”

“Does it matter? For a commoner like me?”

Yara cocks her head. “I suppose not.”

The man smiles, a missing tooth giving him a roguish look. “You’re refreshingly honest, my lady.”

“I try. I’d like to know what you found so humorous at the meeting.” Yara takes the seat opposite Harris, leaning her elbows on her knees.

“Is it of such great importance?”

“A simple question.”

“Simple enough to get your men to keep me prisoner.”

“You’re no prisoner,” Yara looks around the room. “Unless you take this for a cell.”

“Can I leave freely?” he counters.

Yara smirks. “You certainly may try.”

“I find I prefer my head where it is. Can a man not find humor in simple situations?”

Her patience was wearing thin. What little remained from the small council meeting was waning, and she didn’t feel like cleaning blood from the garish carpet. “It’s not so much that you laughed, it is the subject to which you laughed at.”

“The fleet,” the man allows. “And to laugh at a failed project is a crime?”

“To question my father the King is a crime,” Yara’s voice falls low. “Treason.”

To her shock, the man seems unfazed. The Islanders were a hard people, but most men cherished their lives.

“I meant what I said this morn, my Lady. I have nothing to say of worth.”

“I disagree,” Yara glares. “You were the first among them to announce the absence of a fleet.”

“Would it be so difficult to imagine that a penniless project has not succeeded?”

Yara stands, hand going to her sword. “I would speak your next words carefully.”

The man holds up his hands, eyes trained on the pommel of her sword. He swallows, a tiny bit of unease blooming across his face. “I only mean,” he says. “There are rumors, my Lady. The King is crazy, there is no money in the kingdom, the fleet was meant to ship the people away.”

Yara feels dizzy, her hand still clenched around her sword. “Where do these rumors come from?”

The man shakes his head, hands still raised. “I have no idea. The men talk. They’re angry, you see, no money, working in the cold,” he swallows. “No direction from the King.”

Yara makes a small noise, releasing her sword. The man relaxes a fraction.

“They are false,” Yara says finally. “The King is in good health.”

The man studies her, his unease dissipating. Instead, he looks curious. “Of course. But many saw the Dornish on our shores these past weeks.”

“Weeks?” she lets the word slip before she can stop herself.

Harris gives her a small, sly smile. “Aye, the Dornish. Word is they are gathering forces themselves.”

Yara turns her back on him, pacing to the empty fireplace.

“They’re searching for allies, milady. The word is after their Prince was murdered; the King wishes to declare war on the Lannisters—”

“I am sure,” Yara whirls around. “You are not attempting to advise me on matters of the crown.”

Harris only smiles again, the same, unnerving smile he had shared in the fleetmaster meeting. “Of course not, Lady Yara.”

Yara holds his gaze for as long as she can bear, finally waving her hand. “Go.”

She turns back around, listening as his boots clomp noisily to the door. The handle squeaks, then there is silence.

Yara lets out a long breath. The weight on her shoulders seems to grow, forcing them downward. In the back of her mind, the dream of cold, dead flesh spins, reminding her of the cold pull of the ocean.

She stands in the empty room for a long time. Half of her wonders if it would be outrageous to take a nap on the wide bed. The other half wishes to slash the curtains to shreds. She settles for a glower, frowning at the stone walls.

Eventually, she leaves the room. Warn and the others wait, unbothered.

“Staven, Belgor, go.” Yara waves her hand. “Warn, with me.”

They nod and take off, leaving Warn and Yara alone. Yara turns West, taking careful steps.

“Tell me something, Warn,” she starts.

Warn only grunts.

“If I ran out of coin, and appeared in every sense to lose my mind, would you still follow me?” It seemed needy, girlish of her to ask. But she wanted an answer.

“Depends,” Warn mutters. “Am I still making coin?”

Yara considers. “No.”

“Then no.”

“And if you were?”

Warn shrugs. “I would follow a madman for money. Until it runs out.”

She glances at him. “Why are you lying?”

Warn’s wide face is passive. “You are not your father, captain.”

“Am I not?” she demands.

“You are not mad.”

“Not yet.”

Warn gives a rocky laugh. “True enough.”

“So you would? Follow me?”

Warn shakes his head. “A kingdom is not a ship. Captains are not kings.”

She sighs. She won’t get a straight answer out of the mountain of a man, even if his evasive words made her feel better.

In the Mideast Tower, Yara pauses, holding her hand out to Warn. “I need you to do something.”

Warn nods.

“Gather the men in the East Tower. Give them rooms, assign them watches. Tell Rickon to go to town and find Lucas Codd and bring him to the Middle. Let Belgor and Staven gather men for a city guard and clean up the rest. If you see Lord Hotho, tell him to kill the fleet and call the small council for a meeting tomorrow.” Yara ticks off each thought until she feels the tiniest bit of weight lift from her spine.

Warn gives her a short bow, and leaves. Yara blows out a breath, turning to take the rickety bridge back to the Middle Tower.

For the second time that day, she stands outside her father’s rooms, her fist raised to knock. No guards wait outside. Balon had long insisted he was capable of caring for himself.

She sighs, dropping her fist and taking the kraken-shaped handle, pushing against the door.

Darkness greets her, the air laced with sharp ale and fish, the bite of smoky fires and warm leather. Memories burn through Yara’s mind, giggles through the halls, her mother’s soft hands around her middle, jumping on the massive bed and watching the feathers burst out.

“Father?” she calls.

Only the crackle of fire answers her, just barely illuminating the grandeur of the King’s chambers. It’s fallen to ruin, like most other bits of Pyke castle. Draperies hang tattered, the stone floor damp. The bed is crumpled, sheets stinking of sweat, the table and chairs scratched.

“Father,” Yara says again, crossing in front of the fireplace and to the curving wall, letting her fingers trail on the rough stone. “Are you here?”

Tucked in the curve is a stone archway, blocked by wood doors. She pushes one open, stepping onto the stone balcony. Her father is there, hands braced on the railing.

“My daughter,” Balon greets, his voice scratchy. “Have you come to fetch me for the meeting?”

Yara clenches her jaw. “The meeting is well over, father.”

Balon spits into the wind. “Insolent.”  
“You slept through it.”

“I do not sleep through my duties,” he snaps, turning to her. “Well? Have they decided to usurp me? Take my throne?”

“Of course not,” Yara says, tired. She should have not come here.

His eyes burn into hers. “I am King, daughter. I am King of the Islands.”

“Yes,” she agrees reluctantly. Words clamor at her lips, but none escape.

“We used to have lands in the West, you know,” he turns back to the horizon. “Great lands, powerful. That bastard Baratheon—he ruined it. He ruined it all.”

Yara looks over the edge of the balcony. They are so high above the sea that each wave is a tiny white speck, the gray slate of the ocean appearing a light dawn sky, stars sparkling over the expanse.

It’s not long before she leaves him, making her way to the ruined Western Towers. She doesn’t dare climb too high into the crumbling stone, instead taking a winding staircase down to the ground. It was a familiar path, one she needn’t think of when taking. Her feet carried her automatically, stepping over loose stones and slipping through collapsed walls.

Soon she’s free of the castle proper, scrambling over seaweed slick stones. Her boots splash in tidal puddles, cold soaking through the leather.

The path snakes around the castle base, taking a near invisible dip beneath two heaving stones that looked fit to collapse at any moment. Beyond the boulders, a tiny, moist cave echoes with splashing water and drips, a tiny sliver of light calling to Yara. She slips through, and out into a wide, flat slab of rock, pockmarked with deep puddles and surrounded by massive stones. A sheltered lagoon, bursting with tidal creatures. Jewel-toned fish swim in handfuls of salt water, stirring gold sand. Silken plants wave in invisible air, hiding miniature seahorses and blush-colored shells.

Yara finally allows her shoulders to slump, sitting beside one of the pools. She stirs the water with a finger, tracking the movements of a blue fish, its silver stripes flashing in the dying sun.

She had only been back at Pyke for a few days, yet the castle was crumbling beneath her eyes. Her father, as well. Yara was not one for tears, and they did not come. Instead, she was angry. Furious.

Yara was the heir to the Iron Islands, by all right of blood. But how could she claim the throne knowing where her younger brother was? Or rather, _not_ knowing? Was he alive or dead? In pieces, whole? When she had seen him in the Dreadfort—

_No._ She would not think of it. She wouldn’t think of his blank eyes or the desperate screams, the way he cowered from her hand like an animal. She would not think of the haunting days after her return, the responsibilities she shirked.

She had to think about now. Hotho had told her—what her father had refused to hear, isolating himself in his tower, stewing in times past. Yara was here, Yara was present. Men followed her, respected her, fought for her. Without her father to direct them, it fell to her.

And Harris—the odd commoner. Why would he bring up the Dornish? Why would he provoke her with rumors of her father?

It was a bad thing—rumors had always circulated the Islands of her father’s state. Of his ruthlessness, his prerogatives. Never of insanity or incapability. If the rumors were spreading so close to the castle, it was only common sense that the outer islands were stirring as well. The Islands couldn’t handle an uprising, not so soon after they had failed in the North.

Yara’s eyes close. She had been raised in a castle, under the hand of a king. Yet it still felt too soon, too early. She had captained a ship for more than six years. She had plundered the shores of Westeros. She had killed and beaten down enemies. But Pyke castle gave her pause.

She sighs, opening her eyes. The blue fish she gazes at darts beneath an anemone, hiding from an unknown threat. She smiles. If only it were that easy.


	7. Copper Pennies and Silver Serpents

With each passing moment, Yara’s head pounds worse. Each beat of her heart sent a hot, splintering pain through her brow.

She clenches the stem of her goblet, taking a deep drink. It was the only thing besides screaming like a banshee that kept her from collapsing from the pain.

_Dramatics,_ she thinks to herself, setting the cup down. But the arguing of men and the stuffy heat of the room had sown a seed of aching so deep in her skull that she believed she may truly die, an heir to the islands, in the small council room. So much for the glory of battle-death with a sword through her chest, the small council meetings were effective enough.

The small council meeting was over, though, and many others had joined them. Behind Hotho, the ambassadors of the other Islands were milling and chattering. Botley and his soldiers were starkly silent in the midst of it, many of her own men mixed in. Flashy merchants bickered with Beron Blacktyde, each one more foolish looking than the next. Yara had called them all here, one by one, to try and get a better sense of how the isles fared in her absence. She’d been to many a meeting before, always by her father’s side, to listen to the men and their ramblings.

Balon had not come this morning at her call. She had sent the new message boy—Rickon hadn’t been joking about his brother’s skill as a steward—to her father’s room, only to have him returned to her with a hopeless expression. She wished to strike something, but the boy had no part in her father’s stubbornness, so she let him go.

So, Yara sat in her father’s stead. Based on the mild surprise at her presence, it was not abnormal to have the acclaimed King absent from meetings.

The small council meeting had gone poorly. Yara was expecting Lucas Codd to appear before the meeting as she instructed, but the slippery man was never one to be caught. It may take days to track him down.

Like the day before, the men had gone back and forth about money and ships and soldiers and the general despair of the Islands. Foolishly, Yara had thought calling the others in would prove some headway in the matters. More minds to the issues.

But it was quick to see there was no solution. More money meant more trade, but little production meant no trade. More production meant giving more money, but if there was no money there was to be no production. There was to be no war, not after the horrific failure in the north and Theon’s absolute blunder of Winterfell. The fleet was nothing more than toothpicks, and Winter was coming and her father seemed never to leave his room.

Yara digs her nails into her palm, waving the cupbearer over. The girl must have gone through several jugs at this point.

The stream of light wine is a blessing.

“Thank you,” Yara says hoarsely.

In the loud chatter, a low voice comes to her. “The problem is money, and it always will be money. Without coin, we cannot buy the things we need, we cannot provide for the people—”

“You say this as if we can just _make_ money. Do you know how long our trade routes have been infertile? Balon has long since strangled those few relations—”

“We can do more than trade with Westeros. There are things East of here, people—”

“Oh and _you_ wish to cross the Narrow Sea to sell our wild grain and sickly pigs? Why would Qarth or Vayleria want our shit piles on their robes of gold—”

Yara pinches the bridge of her nose. It was becoming more and more clear why her father stayed in his room with the door shut.

_So why do it?_ She thinks, sipping the bitter wine. _Why declare yourself King, if all these places were happy on their own?_

Part of her recoiled—that strong, steely Greyjoy side. It was obvious why they were in charge, who was the fiercest among the Islanders, the most brutal? Who had united them against the West, against the bastard King Robert? Even when they were struck down, who fought for the Island’s right to freedom?

But a smaller part of her kept questioning. _We once ruled separately_. Her eyes found Hotho. _Is it time to return to that?_

_No!_

Yara drinks again, feeling the familiar dullness of drink sweep through her mind. Who would she be if she just bowed down to this? If she folded in the face of uncertainty? She would most definitely not be herself.

Something in her chest shifts. A block of iron wraps itself around her heart. The sound of waves fill her ears. These Islands were _hers_. She was one of them, as they were her. And she would not let them fall apart.

She stands. The room partially falls silent.

“Men,” she stands, assuming her position as captain. She was at ease in the midst of them, familiar with their stares. She had been in charge of her ship for nearly half her life now, she would be a failure if she were nervous. “The Islands are our primary concern. We are of the salt,”

“Aye,” some men muttered in agreement.

“And we are of the sea. The Kind has sent me in his stead to assume duties as he plans our continuing success, so reports will come to me and me only.” She gazes over the dark eyes, taking note of those who were wary, those who outright glared.

“What of the King?” a voice called from within the mass of bodies.

Yara searches for the voice, but only sees shifting glances. “Your King is strong,” she responds, allowing her gaze to grow sharp.

A murmur ripples through the group. Perhaps not the best words. Men like these responded to strength. She would give them strength.

Yara slams her cup on the table, and every head turns to her. She unsheathes a dagger at her side, pressing the blade against her palm. “I swear in blood. The House Greyjoy is stronger than ever.” The dagger digs into her skin.

“What of Theon?” this voice is much closer. It’s a merchant, clothed in red, a beard of black braided with dull stones.

Yara feels herself blink once, twice, three times. “What of him?”

“There are rumors, Lady, of his status.” The man smiles. “Rumors of his manhood.”

The box flashes through her eyes, the wrinkled skin, the smell of rot and decay. The feeling of cold flesh slides over his skin, of that pale face gasping for air beneath the waves.

She feels rather than hears her own men shift behind her. They stood at quiet attention, Warn at the head of their arrowhead formation. It was a reminder to the men that Yara was not simply daughter of Balon, nor was she simply Lady Greyjoy. She was Lady Reaper, Lordess of the Seas, Bather of Blood and the Salt She-demon. Yara Greyjoy was not one to taunt.

Her feet carry her easily around the table. The merchant’s long beard is in her hand in one moment, her dagger cutting through it the next. The stones smatter against the floor, and her knee is quickly in his gut. She feels his breath wash over her as he gasps, thudding to the ground in a moment. Her dagger goes to his neck.

“Rumors are for kitchen maids and spymasters,” she hisses, bending close to his ear. “Which are you?”

The merchant chokes, his throat moving against the blade. The room has gone deathly silent.

Out of the corner of her eye, Yara sees the flash of the cupbearer’s dark hair, the pale glow of her skin. Good. Yara wanted them all to watch.

“Hm?” Yara presses the blade closer. She can see his skin go red, white around the blade. Just a bit more and blood would bead on his skin.

“Neither,” he manages to rasp. “Apologies, my lady. Forgive me.”

For a moment, Yara considers killing him. It would certainly make a statement to all the others.

Yara steals a glance at the cupbearer girl, who has looked away once more. Fine. The girl had seen enough to spread gossip among the staff. Yara releases the man, leaving him to fall on his hands and knees, heaving. She needn’t have anyone clean blood off the floor this day. Besides, this man could have fortune she had no knowledge of. What if she had accidentally killed her only way out of debt?

Yara sheathes the dagger, looking up into the crowd. “Are there more questions?” she calls. “Anything you would like to say?”

The men look past her or into their cups, taking small sips. The steel casing in her chest warms.

“Lord Blacktyde,” Yara says, turning her back on the choking merchant, stalking back to her seat at the table. She waves the cupbearer forward once again. The girl’s hands are steady as they pour. “I think we are all aware of the nature of the coin in the Islands. How are we to make more?” she pulls a long drink from the cup, the merchant in the crowd struggling to his feet. Yara keeps an eye on him as Lord Blacktyde comes to her side, unfurling a long scroll.

“My Lady,” Lord Blacktyde says, his belly jiggling. “I have an extensive report on the crown’s finances over the last months…”

Yara tries her best to pay attention. Lord Blacktyde points at numbers and small scribbles, explaining each detail. But soon her attention slips, unable to keep her mind occupied by the fractions of silvers and losses on sloops. The cupbearer comes again.

This time, Yara watches as the cupbearer pours in each cup. The girl lingers, her hair swinging over her face, shielding it from view. But she moved in a curious way, not looking at the floor. No, the girl was looking at the table.

“…surely will result in revenue, my Lady.”

Yara blinks, looking up. “Surely,” she agrees. “Tell me this, Lord Blacktyde, have we money enough to buy grain for the Winter?”

Lord Blacktyde clears his throat and takes a long drink. “My Lady,” he begins, folding his hands together. “We haven’t money to pay your castle staff, much less feed the Islanders.”

Yara’s brows come together. “A jest, my Lord.”

Lord Blacktyde shifts in his seat. “I’m afraid it is no jest, my Lady. There is no room in the crown’s bank to give to the people.”

“Then find more money,” she demands, leaning forward. “Is that not your job?”

“But of course,” Lord Blacktyde pulls a scroll close. “As I’ve laid out here, if we are to raise taxes on the—”

“ _Raise_ taxes?” Yara interrupts. “If they have no money, how do they pay taxes?”

“Well,” Lord Blacktyde laughs, looking at his merchants, who chuckle good-naturedly. The crimson one glowers. “That’s not our concern, is it?”

Yara frowns. She had no care for peasants, but it seemed a dead end to demand money from the poor in order to feed the poor.

“What about trade?” she asks.

Lord Blacktyde looks at his merchants again. “With whom, my Lady?”

Yara waves her hand at the maps that litter the table. “With someone. Send out ships.”

“Easier said than done,” a merchant pipes up. “There’s little on the Islands that those require.”

“Iron,” Yara supplies. “What else are we named for?”

“Westeros has trade long beyond the Islands,” another says. “Other places mine iron.”

She grinds her teeth. “Our ships then. We don’t have the Iron Fleet for naught.”

There’s a small murmur. Yara takes this as a good sign, pointing to one of her men among Botley’s stoic crew. “Botley and Thorn—raise twenty longships. Fly under the Stepstone flag. Offer mercenary services to the Westerners. Raid cargo ships. Come back in a year.”

The two men step forward and bow their heads, while others watch with wide eyes. A small collection of soldiers file out of the room after her orders, leaving silence in their wake.

She turns to Blacktyde. “Have your merchants search. I don’t care if others trade iron. _We_ are the Iron Islands. Find someone to trade with,” she spears a glare at the crimson merchant. “Go to Essos if you must. There is someone out there who needs goods that we have,” she raises her voice. “Do this _before_ Winter, my friends. We have precious little time.”

Beron Blacktyde blinks at Yara with wide eyes. “My Lady?”

She raises her brow. “Do you need instructions repeated?”

“No,” he seems to shake himself, directing his round eyes to the merchants. “I’ll have my best men go far and wide.”

“Be sure to do that,” Yara says, lifting her drink. “I do not have patience for failure.”

Threats, thrown out like candy. They worked well among men. Yara had learned that long ago.

Botley and his collection of colorful tradesmen were the next group to leave the chamber, leaving behind a much smaller, and much more wary group. Hotho came to the table, sitting beside Yara.

“Well done, my Lady,” Hotho says quietly. “It’s long since someone put that fool in his place.”

Yara ignores the compliment. “How much gold does Botley have?”

“Enough that he has that great gut. What of it?”

“Taxes,” Yara gulps down her wine. “I would like to raise the tax on House Botley.”

Hotho’s brows raise. “Is that wise?”

“Are you advising against it?”

They hold each other’s gaze. _Challenge me_ , Yara dares. _Tell me to do otherwise._ Hotho was her uncle by her mother’s marriage, but she was his superior by birth. As trusted as valued as he was, Yara held rank.

“Warn,” Yara calls without breaking eye contact. “Fetch me Vickon.”

Hotho’s lips twitch up, but he says nothing. If the men are off-put by their silent argument, they also remain quiet.

When the doors have clicked shut, someone from the crows breaks off to approach the table. Yara looks to them, allowing Hotho a reprieve.

“My Lady,” the man says, bending his head. “I captain the _Dorne’s Blood_. I served your father during the rebellion against Robert Baratheon.”

Yara stood to offer her hand, giving him a grave nod. The man is weathered, with dark hair and eyes, his skin calloused and rough.

“Your name?” she asks, sitting down.

He takes the invitation, taking the seat on her other side. “Saltborne. Captain.”

“What news do you have for me, Captain?”

“Of the war, my Lady.”

Yara nearly chokes on her wine. “The war?” of all the things she thought he would say—from Theon to her father, the last would be war.

“Aye. My men and I took our leave from the North after we relinquished hold on Winterfell and took East. We heard of lands of silver grain and gold wine, we had a taste for it,” he shifts. The entire room seemed to listen to his gruff speech, leaning forward. “Have you heard the tale of the Dragon Queen, Lady Yara?”

Ah, the Dragon Queen. Yara had indeed heard of her, cursed from her father’s own mouth. The Targaryen girl, last of her noble, inbred House. Spirited away by some loyalist or another to Essos, apparently with three dragons of her own.

“It’s a story, is it not? A tale to keep the Lords of Westeros pissing their beds at night?” Yara lifts her drink again, enjoying the laughter that followed.

Saltborne doesn’t seem amused. “I’m afraid it’s no tale, my Lady. I saw the Dragon Queen myself.”

The laughter dies. Yara puts her goblet on the table.

“What?”

The captain nods, eyes grave. “We were in Mareen. Last stop in Slaver’s Bay before heading home. Each place we went to, Astapor, Yunkai, Qarth—they each had tales of _myhsa_ , the white woman who saved them from slavery. They told us of her dragons. Then in Mareen, we saw them with our own eyes. On the great pyramid, three serpents, like in the tales, all flew on wings greater than longships. They were bigger than Pyke castle itself,”

Yara can hardly draw a breath.

“I saw them blow the fire from their mouths. It lit up the sky like cannons. One of them could have flattened the city, but there were three.”

The silence following was deafening. Yara can hardly think through the ringing in her ears.

“The Dragon Queen,” she muses finally, glad her voice was strong enough not to shake. “With real dragons.”

Saltborne clears his throat. “She is crossing the Narrow Sea with an army of the horse brutes and her dragons, Lady Yara.”

_Drowned God damn it all_. Yara puts her cup down. If she had a competent spymaster, she may have known this before some Captain could tell her. Where the hell was Lucas?

Her anger slipped through her chest, poking at the iron shield around her heart. Her _father_ should have known this. Her _father_ should have prepared. Not only was Winter showing its fangs at the starving Islands, but a white Queen with _dragons_?

_I should have been here_ , she thinks absently. Not fleeing from her panic, the heaving horror of her brother’s face haunting her. She should have stayed.

“Is it war she wants?” Hotho says finally, bringing Yara’s attention back to the table.

Saltborne raises a shoulder. “She’s coming with an army and warships. I don’t think she’s coming for a picnic.”

A murmur ripples through the remaining men, and Yara watches them exchange glances. It was bad enough that rumors of her unstable father were growing, what would happen if they fled the room to spread the tale of the Dragon Queen and her army?

“How many ships?”

Saltborne and Hotho stare. Yara meets their gazes.

“How many ships?” she repeats.

“Twenty. Maybe less.” Saltborne shifts.

“And how many have we?” Yara turns to Hotho.

He raises his brows once more. “Hundreds, my Lady.”

Yara spreads her hands, glad they are steady from years of handling the rough ropes aboard ships. “I seem to have a proposition for this Dragon Queen.”

Her head is spinning, but she feels the room shift from fear to curiosity. The words had left her mouth without thinking. What did Yara know of foreign deals or offering the fleet? When was the last time the Iron Islands had gone to war with an ally? Pieces began to come together in her mind, faster than she could keep track of.

The great doors slam open. Yara nearly knocks her cup over, leaping to her feet.

Three people stumble in the doorway, the cupbearer girl lurching back to give them room. Bulky Warn comes first, gripping someone by the collar, his gangly legs dragging. Behind the pair is Vickon, his light yellow hair combed to the side, his expression extremely miffed.

Yara watches as Warn stops before her, tossing the man in her direction. He trips over his feet, slamming into the table.

“Ouch, you brute,” the man says, pulling himself to standing position, glaring at Warn. “I would have come with you if you asked nicely.”

Yara hears Vickon sniff. “Well, I never,” he says under his breath. He gives Yara a low bow. “You have need of me?”

The lanky man reaches an arm across the table, gripping Yara’s cup and bringing it to his lips. “I have need of you as well, young man,” he winks, drinking deeply.

If anything, Vickon looks more offended.

Yara wants to burst out laughing. “Warn?”

“Found him lurking in the halls,” Warn grunts. “I think we’ve found Lucas Codd.”

Yara turns back to the lanky man, staring in disbelief. The Lucas Codd she knew was short and stunted with red hair and a beard. This man was stretched thin, a light dusting of brown hair over his pale head.

“What?” he says at her look. “I got taller.”

“Your hair,” Yara manages to say.

“Have you not heard of dye, my grand Lady?” he takes another drink, eyes flashing. Yara was certain they had been blue when she first met him, not a dark black.

“And you eyes.” She sits back down, her headache returning in full force.

“I won’t give away all my secrets,” Lucas turns, winking at Vickon, who turns his nose upwards.

“Out,” Yara says, her head falling in her hands. “All of you. Out.”

It takes a moment, but she hears a great rustling as the other men stand, their boots thumping the stone as they leave. The doors creak and swing.

“Hotho. Lucas. Vickon, Warn and the rest. Stay.”

Seconds tick by, and Yara waits until a silence has fell before lifting her head. Lucas was waving the cupbearer forward, holding out his cup. Hotho was quietly studying a scroll. Vickon still stood attention, looking much too clean for Pyke’s dingy walls, and Warn scowled at Lucas.

“Vickon,” Yara begins. “Draft a tax decree. I’m raising the crown tax on House Blacktyde.”

Vickon bends. “Of course, my Lady. Is that all?”

“Raise them on House Volmark. Sunderly. Lower them on Botley.”

Hotho coughs into his hand. She ignores him, looking to Vickon to measure his reaction.

If the steward had any opinion, he kept it to himself, bending his head and turning on a crisp heel, letting himself out of the room. She’d have to thank Rickon again for putting his brother up to the job.

“Lucas,” Yara turns back to the table.

“I want money,” he says, before she can even finish her sentence. “A hundred silver serpents a week.”

Yara cocks her head. “What in your right mind gives you any idea that I am about to pay you?”

“I’m not dead,” he tips his goblet at her. “So you must need something.”

“Maybe I want to make it slow.”

“Not your style.”

“You don’t know me.”

“A bluff. I don’t know many Greyjoys who prefer to chat over killing.”

“You know _one_ Greyjoy.”

“That you know of.”

She tilts her head. “How have you fared?”

“Since you met me, or since I was born?” he drinks. “Well, to both.”

“Bottom-feeders always seem to survive,” she agrees. “As long as they aren’t trod underfoot.”

“Such a way with words.”

“I try.”

Yara’s fist spasms, her nails digging into her skin. Lucas had a point—he was still alive. He knew she wanted something. But it didn’t mean she wasn’t knocking him over the head first.

“Why were you in the castle?” she asks, drawing a deep breath through her nose.

“You asked for me. I responded.”

Her forehead crinkles. “I sent someone to fetch you a week ago. They could not find you.”

He smiles. “Isn’t that why you asked for me in the first place? I heard Lord Sarrow is well out of favor. How odd that you should want to visit an old friend after his dismissal.”

So he knew exactly what she wanted. “Very good timing. Yet you chose to come here unannounced?”

“You have very poor security,” he says, eyes darting to Warn.

“We deal in respect,” Yara hears her voice go sharp. “That our people respect the castle of their lords.”

“Respect is flimsy,” Lucas says, looking at Warn’s meaty hands. “And it let me in this castle without a second glance.”

“We can spare money.”

Yara and Lucas both look to Hotho, who spoke quietly. Yara had nearly forgotten he was there.

He looks between them. “We can spare enough, if you agree to work with us.”

“A reasonable man,” Lucas smiles, lifting his wine in salute. “I accept.”

“Ten pennies,” Hotho responds. “Every quarter.”

Lucas’s face drops. “You must be joking.”

Hotho lifts his shoulders, rolling up the scroll he had been reading. “I am offering you payment. You have agreed already. If you wish to leave, feel free.” He gestures to the door, where Warn was still standing.

Lucas swallows, looking between Warn and Hotho.

Finally, he sighs, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I should have known,” he shoots Yara a baleful look. “When a Greyjoy comes asking, you can’t refuse.”

“Good sport,” Yara stands, clapping him on the shoulder. “You are master of whispers.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “I suppose I should be flattered.”

“I agree. I never knew another man so capable of deceit.”

He outright glares at Yara. “I want my money now.”

“Fine,” she lifts her hands. “You have your money. But you spy for _us_.”

Lucas Codd was a stowaway on one of Yara’s ships five years prior. She’d been fresh on a Summer hunt along the coast of the Riverlands, plundering as she pleased. The stocky boy was found when they made land, and rather than killing him, she allowed him to take part in the raid to see if he was of any use. To everyone’s shock, Lucas slipped away in the violence and returned with a Lord’s pendant. It was the only thing that kept him on the ship afterwards. As they plundered their way along the coast, Lucas always seemed to disappear and reappear with greater treasure, lying his way through taverns and charming the skirts off peasant women. When they returned to Pyke, Lucas had slithered into the gutters of the city and was never heard from again. If there was someone to start a spy network, it was him.

But Lucas still looks miffed, even though he was now getting royal coin. “I suppose it’s better than having to watch Sarrow’s lot of fools try and scrounge up anything useful. Those blokes are more obvious than a bird in water, you know.”

Some of her apprehension eases at his words. She could have easily forced Lucas to work for her, but the best labor was one that came willingly.

“You’ll have rooms here,” Yara says to him. “A steady pay. Royal favor—”

“No,” Lucas holds up a hand. “Already bad. If I stay here, everyone will know what I’m doing for you. Best for me to go back to the town and act as if you roughed me up for one crime or another.”

Hotho makes a small noise. “Clever.”

Lucas shakes his head. “Common sense.”

“You’ll have to recruit others,” Yara continues, ignoring the jab. “I don’t know the state of Sarrow’s men—”

“Leave it to me,” Lucas says. “Give me my coin. I’ll make it done.”

“You have to come to the small council meetings,” Yara protests. “Every week.”

“I’ll try my best,” Lucas’s hungry eyes watch as Hotho reaches for a small pouch at his waist.

Yara holds up a hand to Hotho. “What do you know of the Dragon Queen?” she asks Lucas.

His black eyes dart around her face. “Enough to know she’s not one you want to get in the way of.”

_I don’t plan on it_ , Yara thinks. _No, my plan is much worse._ “Fine.”

Lucas’s hand opens, his fingers curling, beckoning the coin into his waiting palm. Hotho takes a handful of copper pennies and then a single silver coin, holding up and giving Lucas a knowing look. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Yes, yes,” Lucas says impatiently. “I am very trustworthy. Come, give me the money.”

Hotho drops it into his hand, unconvinced. Lucas has a crazed half-smile as he slips it into his jacket, tipping his goblet all the way up.

“Lady,” he says to Yara, then nodding to Hotho. He stands, nearly to the door before he turns. “It’s a good thing you called me here. I think I was the only one who noticed that Dornish ambassador leave just moments ago.”

He gives one last grin before pulling the door open and swinging himself out. It shuts behind him with an ominous _clang_.

“Drowned God take me,” Yara swears. “I think I may hate him.”

Hotho raises his brows. “I cannot disagree.”

“He drank all my God-damned wine,” Yara growls, shoving the cup away from her.

As if she called, the cupbearer appears by Yara’s side, tipping her heavy jug into the cup. Yara’s eyes drift up, taking in the dark hair. Again, the cupbearer’s face is turned in the oddest direction, away from the cup, torwards the table. Yara looks to the maps.

Ah, the colorful pictures would catch anyone’s attention. No wonder the girl was so distracted. She sweeps over to Hotho, still glancing at the maps. Yara can barely see her face behind the hair.

Hotho and Yara drink in silence for some time. The sun was nearly full in the sky, yet Yara felt the effect of her drinking through the morning, her eyelids becoming heavy. She wanted nothing more than to tromp back to her room and throw herself on her canopied bed.

“So,” Hotho says finally. “The Dragon Queen?”

Yara looks at the ceiling. “The Dragon Queen, the Lion Queen, the Queen of the Sea…there are too-damn many.”

“Twice as many kings,” Hotho says mildly. “We seemed to just have a war with five of them.”

Yara shakes her head. “I have to think of the Islands before anything else.”

“I admire that,” Hotho says gently. “Yet things are very rarely so simple.”

“How is this simple?” Yara straightens in her chair, staring at her uncle. “Was anything that just happened _simple_?”

Hotho looks unbothered. “Simple, no. Effective, yes. I daresay this has been the most change since your father took power of the Islands.”

The words brush past her without weight, and she waves them away. “He has done more in his lifetime than I can ever hope to accomplish.”

Hotho has nothing to say to that, lifting his cup. He drinks, looking contemplatively at the map. “Blacktyde will not be happy with your tax. Nor the other houses. Care to explain the choice?”

Yara looks at the map of Westeros, her little Islands. “I’m sick of hearing Beron whine about money. He has enough to feed a city and then some. I’ll take it. The others,” she shakes her head. “Volmark has always been an enemy of ours. And Sunderly’s youngest son is ugly.”

Her uncle doesn’t laugh. “It is not the time to make enemies.”

“It is not the time to let our people starve,” Yara snaps back. “If what people say is true, the Dragon Queen is coming, there are Dornish on our shores and _in our castle_ —I have to do something.”

Slowly, in the back of her mind, a familiar itch began. It spider-crawled its way up her throat, barbs poking into her tongue. Her feet twitched, wishing to carry her up and pace around the room. The sound of the waves became stronger.

She could do something, she realizes. She could get up and go, back to her ship, sail off the coast, leave this behind. Her aching head, the cloistering room, the bickering men. The open sea was waiting for her, beckoning to her to return.

Yara’s fingernails dig into the wood of the table. “You are Hand of the King. Advise him.”

She feels Hotho’s steady gaze on her. Does he sense the restlessness grow in her? Can he see how close she is to bolting?

“If the King were here,” he begins. “I would advise him to stay as far from conflict as possible. Send the Dornes away, keep our ships for ourselves, and weather our way through this Winter,” he leans forward. “The Iron Islands have already lost their heirs once. They would be damned to lose you as well.”

_That_ she would not allow. The memories of flesh and rot and Theon’s wild eyes—

“Very well,” Yara’s voice is cold, even to her own ears. “Leave me. All of you.”

For a long while, Hotho makes no move to stand. Neither do her men, still scattered around her back in their formation. The itch builds and builds in Yara’s throat, until she shoves her chair back and whirls on them, stabbing a finger in their direction.

“I said: _Leave!_ ”

Warn nods and turns. The others follow. Yara watches, chest heaving, as each of her men files out of the room. Hotho is last to go, the cupbearer close on his heels.

“Not you. You stay.”

The girl stops and turns, her head still bowed. She assumes her position as the doors close.

Yara throws herself back into her chair and puts a hand over her eyes. She curses softly.

It takes a long time for Yara to control the itch. She beats back the memories of her brother, the growing rage at each thought— _Dragon Queen, Dornish, war, Winter, Theon, King, Dragon Queen, Dornish, war, Winter, Theon, King—_

She lets out a long breath. What had she told herself just hours ago? She was of the Islands, as they were of her.

Her eyes find the cupbearer, huddled by the wall.

“You.” Her voice is gravelly, as if she had been screaming. Yara clears her throat. “Cupbearer. Come.”

The girl starts as if she’s been struck. She makes no move to lift her head, moving forward on quiet feet. Her dress is just a bit short for her, and Yara can see ragged socks hanging over her thin legs.

When the cupbearer is close, she says, “You cup is full, milady.”

Yara looks to her cup, then back at the girl. “So it is. That is not why I asked you here,” Yara sits up, patting her pockets for the small pouch of coin, pulling it forward. “Are you getting paid for your work?”

The girl seems as if she’s hardly breathing. “I’m to be paid ten coppers a week.”

Yara spills the contents of her bag into her hand, counting out the coin. “Ten. Take them. Only come to me for payment.”

The girl makes no move to take them, standing very still in front of Yara.

Yara extends her hand, offering the coin. “Come. Take it. I’ve no faith that you will actually get paid if not from me directly.” What in all the Drowned God’s kingdom was she doing? When had she developed a soft spot for peasants?

_Probably after you learned they’ll all starve under your watch_ , a small voice says viciously.

Finally, the girl’s white hand scoops them from Yara’s palm. She holds them flat, as if studying them.

Then, to Yara’s utter surprise, the girl throws them on the table. She blinks as the coins bounce and roll off the surface, raining onto the stone floor.

“I don’t need your charity.”

The jug slams onto the table, and the girl turns, leaving Yara stunned in her seat. The door opens and closes for the final time.

She curses aloud, a sudden heat bursting through her chest. To her surprise, a grin spread across her face. _She has the fury of the sea in her._ If only ever man in the small council was as brave as that cupbearer girl. The Islands may fare far better.

As she gathers the fallen coin from the ground, she schemes to find Vickon as soon as possible. The cupbearer would remain paid, if not by herself. Let the chambermaids and message boys struggle for coin—that girl was getting her ten coppers.


End file.
